Worcester’s city manager brought the council an ordinance that would have fined people $25 for sleeping on a sidewalk. After two hours of public comment and about five minutes of council discussion, it was dead.
The vote matters beyond Worcester, because this was the first serious test in Massachusetts of what the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson actually unlocked. The answer, at least here, is that it removed a legal obstacle and left a political one standing.
What was proposed
City Manager Eric Batista put the encampment ordinance before the council Tuesday as one piece of a broader homelessness strategy the city calls “Disrupting the Cycle.”
The ordinance would have fined people $25 per infraction for camping in tents or sleeping anywhere on streets or sidewalks. People living in cars for 24 consecutive hours in public parking lots would have been subject to the same fine. The proposal, as described in the city’s materials, paired the fines with a 72-hour notice before an encampment could be cleared, and required outreach and an offer of shelter services first. The ban reached streets, sidewalks and bike paths.
In a September 15 memo to councilors, Batista wrote that “it is simply unacceptable to live in inhumane conditions” outside and that there needs to be “a local option for enforcement that we have seen lacking at the regional and state-wide level.” Health and Human Services Commissioner Seema Dixit wrote separately that encampments pose risks to public safety, health, the environment and community well-being.
The number that hung over the debate: the city’s shelters hold a combined 197 beds, which outreach workers say is short of the unsheltered population.
What happened
Dozens of residents spoke against the plan during two hours of public comment, arguing it would criminalize homelessness and leave people in debt they could not pay. Kevin Lynch, who is homeless, asked where people would be allowed to go. “Please let’s think about a little better approach to this,” he said.
Councilors called it a non-starter as soon as discussion opened. Councilor Gary Rosen said “this plan needs a lot of work” and told Batista to “get rid of the criminalization of the homeless. Get rid of those ideas.”
Mayor Joseph Petty, who chairs the council, said the city needs to “show some dignity and respect,” and questioned whether the ban would accomplish anything. “We go take an encampment down, what then?” he said. “They just go to another neighborhood. Then they come back.”
Rosen filed a motion, which most councilors supported, sending the strategy back to Batista to strip out the encampment ordinance and incorporate the council’s feedback. Petty and Rosen both said they supported other parts of the plan, including expanding shelter capacity, improving data sharing between social service agencies and streamlining how people are connected to services.
What Grants Pass actually decided
The ordinance existed because the constitutional law changed two years ago, and it is worth being precise about how.
Before 2024, the controlling rule in the Ninth Circuit came from Martin v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584 (2019), which held that enforcing an anti-camping ordinance against people with nowhere else to sleep violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. That decision was never binding in Massachusetts, which sits in the First Circuit, but it shaped how municipal lawyers everywhere advised their clients.
In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, 603 U.S. 520 (2024), the Supreme Court reversed that approach 6 to 3, holding that generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property do not impose “cruel and unusual punishment” within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment.
Here is the part that matters for what Worcester was considering. Grants Pass is an Eighth Amendment decision. It removed one federal constitutional objection. It did not hold that camping bans are wise, or that they are immune from every other challenge. Left untouched are due process arguments about notice and the destruction of property, Fourth Amendment claims when belongings are seized and discarded, disability claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act where shelter is inaccessible, and any protection a state constitution might supply. The Massachusetts Declaration of Rights has not been tested on this question.
So a Massachusetts city adopting a camping ban after Grants Pass is not in safe harbor. It is in unmapped water with one known reef removed.
Worcester has been here before
There is a local reason the council may have been cautious that has nothing to do with compassion.
In 2014 the First Circuit decided Thayer v. City of Worcester, 755 F.3d 60, in litigation the ACLU brought over two Worcester ordinances restricting panhandling and pedestrian solicitation. After further proceedings, the ordinances were struck down, and reporting on this week’s debate notes the city ultimately paid $475,000 in court-ordered legal fees.
That is the shape of the risk. A municipality that adopts an ordinance regulating conduct by people with no money does not face damages from the people it fines. It faces a fee award to the organization that sues on their behalf. Attorney fee shifting under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 is what makes constitutional litigation possible against a city, and it is the number that gets a city solicitor’s attention.
What a Massachusetts city can still do
Rejecting this ordinance does not leave Worcester without tools, and it is worth saying what remains, because the debate is usually conducted as though the choice is between a fine and nothing.
Cities and towns already have authority under G.L. c. 40, § 21 to adopt ordinances and bylaws for a range of purposes, and existing law already reaches conduct rather than status: obstruction of a public way, trespass on private property, illegal dumping, open fires, and public health orders where conditions are genuinely hazardous. The Worcester proposal was not filling a legal vacuum. It was adding a fine for the act of sleeping in public, which is the specific thing the council balked at.
The other thing that remains is the part of Batista’s plan the council said it liked. Shelter capacity, data sharing and a real-time bed-availability dashboard are not constitutionally interesting, which is precisely why they survived a night when the constitutionally interesting part did not.
What to watch
- What comes back. The strategy returns to the city manager, not to a committee. Whether the revised version drops enforcement entirely or returns it in a different form is the question.
- Whether another Massachusetts city goes first. Worcester became the test case only because of timing. Someone will be the first to adopt one here, and that ordinance will be litigated.
- The 197 beds. Every version of this debate resolves into shelter capacity. An ordinance conditioned on an offer of shelter is only as enforceable as the number of beds behind it.
Did Worcester ban homeless encampments?
No. The City Council rejected the proposed ordinance on September 22, 2026 and sent the broader homelessness strategy back to the city manager to remove it.
What would the ordinance have done?
Imposed a $25 fine for camping in tents or sleeping on streets or sidewalks, and for living in a car in a public parking lot for 24 consecutive hours, after a 72-hour notice and an offer of outreach and shelter services.
Are camping bans legal after Grants Pass?
City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, 603 U.S. 520 (2024), held that generally applicable camping regulations do not violate the Eighth Amendment. It did not address due process, Fourth Amendment, ADA or state constitutional challenges, none of which have been tested on this question in Massachusetts.
What was Martin v. City of Boise?
A 2019 Ninth Circuit decision holding that enforcing anti-camping laws against people with nowhere else to sleep violated the Eighth Amendment. It was never binding in Massachusetts and was superseded by Grants Pass.
Why does the Thayer case matter?
Because Worcester litigated two panhandling ordinances that were ultimately struck down, and reporting indicates the city paid $475,000 in court-ordered legal fees. Fee shifting is the practical risk in municipal constitutional litigation.
What happens next?
The homelessness strategy goes back to City Manager Eric Batista for revision. The council indicated support for the shelter capacity, data sharing and service coordination elements.
Account of the September 22, 2026 council meeting, the quotations from Gary Rosen, Joseph Petty, Kevin Lynch and City Manager Eric Batista’s September 15 memo, and the terms of the proposed ordinance from GBH News, reporting by Sam Turken, September 23, 2026. Additional ordinance detail including the 72-hour notice, the bike path coverage, Commissioner Seema Dixit’s memo and the 197 shelter beds from Hoodline, September 2026, citing MassLive and This Week in Worcester. The $475,000 fee figure in the Thayer litigation is as reported in that coverage; we have not reviewed the fee award. Citations verified: City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, 603 U.S. 520 (2024); Martin v. City of Boise, 920 F.3d 584 (9th Cir. 2019); Thayer v. City of Worcester, 755 F.3d 60 (1st Cir. 2014). We have not reviewed the council’s journal of proceedings. General information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice.