WENATCHEE — The Wenatchee City Council unanimously approved ordinances Thursday to make unpermitted camping in Wenatchee parks a criminal offense rather than a civil infraction; and to create an impoundment and disposal process for shopping carts are left abandoned in the community.
The two code changes, based on similar ordinances adopted by the city of Auburn, would go into effect 30 days from passage. City officials characterized the changes as part of a broad strategic plan on coping with the number of unhoused people in Chelan and Douglas counties, estimated at 482 as of last winter's Point In Time census.
"I don't want to be a city that just dumps (people), and says, 'Just get out of here,'" Mayor Mike Poirier said during Thursday's council workshop to study the ordinances. "We're not going to lower ourselves. We're gonna come and offer services."
Of those 482, 341 had access to some form of temporary housing. In the Wenatchee and East Wenatchee metro area, outreach specialists counted 45 individuals categorized as unsheltered — living in vehicles or otherwise without a suitable dwelling. That figure was down from 113 in 2022 and 61 people last year.
Wenatchee city attorney Danielle Marchant said the city's current ordinance related to public camping makes it a civil infraction, similar to a speeding ticket with a small fine. Under the newly adopted code, a person found residing in a park or on other city property can be offered shelter services, if available, and prosecuted for a misdemeanor if they do not comply with orders to leave.
"I don't want to say that this is a no-camping ordinance," Marchant said. "This is more like a protection of public spaces ordinance, because it allows you to also trespass somebody from a public space that maybe is taking drugs in the public space, is fighting in the public space, doing other things like that."
The second ordinance adopted puts the onus on merchants to keep their shopping carts accounted for, and characterizes an abandoned cart as a public nuisance that can be impounded, stored, returned or destroyed. The merchant must place their identification on each cart, and a business owning an abandoned cart would be assessed an automatic $30 fee for impoundment, and $70 per cart that must be disposed of if the owner does not pick it up.
"Right now, the city is having its resources used to go find all their carts and go return them, or th city's resources are used todispose of them," Marchant said.
The new codes are part of an overall homelessness strategy for Wenatchee which would also establish the role of a Homeless Response Administrator. The council has yet to approve that position.
