A federal appeals court found in 2012 that authorities must preserve homeless people’s seized property so they have an opportunity to reclaim it.
In a 2-1 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed an earlier ruling which held that “the government may not take property like a thief in the night; rather, it must announce its intentions and give the property owner a chance to argue against the taking.” That’s true even if the property is violating a local ordinance, like a ban on sidewalk camping, Vancouver attorney Peter Fels added.
Taking and destroying such property violates the constitution’s protection against unreasonable seizures, the court found, and not giving its owners notice or an opportunity to reclaim it violates the constitution’s due-process requirement.
In 2012, the federal United States Interagency Council on Homelessness released a report on the “criminalization of homelessness,” noting that many jurisdictions, responding to citizen and business complaints, are turning to both “formal and informal law enforcement policies” that “minimize the visibility” of homeless people.