Do what you will in your dorm rooms, apartments or houses, but on the streets of Tempe, city officials refuse to let you sleep around.
In 1997, the Tempe City Council passed the Urban Camping Ordinance, which effectively criminalized homelessness in Tempe. Homeless people may now be arrested on misdemeanor charges, facing penalties ranging from a warning to fines that reach $500 or 30 days in jail.
On top of that, Tempe has no homeless shelter. That leaves the homeless with no alternative to illegal urban camping.
On the upside, city attorneys are striking plea deals with some of those they find in violation of the ordinance, telling them that if they pack up and move out of town, the city won't press charges.
This is a tradition that has been in place since the 1800s, when the city outlaws would tell their enemies to get out of town by sunset or face a shootout at high noon.
The effort of the council in 1997 was to put a stop to the influx of homeless people that took shelter in parks and on public streets, but this has had a non-influence on the number of people found nestled in bushes or sleeping on benches.
The Free to Camp Coalition, formed in opposition to the new law and through its efforts, has gained some public attention. Still, the council has left the group out in the cold.
On Jan. 15, the group presented the council with a 1,170-signature petition denouncing the ordinance. Several dozen members of the group spoke at the meeting, but by city law, members of the council cannot respond.
And the group still has not been answered. As a more aggressive approach, the group joined East Valley Food Not Bombs and Local to Global Justice in a march through Tempe on Saturday. The groups set up a temporary structure on Mill Avenue and stood their ground for about an hour.
The main objective this time was to bring the issue to the attention of the mayoral candidates, who will square off in a March 9 election.
Neither Dennis Cahill nor Hugh Hallman, the two frontrunners in the mayoral election, has made the issue a strong part of his mayoral campaign.
Why should they?
Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano has served the city as mayor since 1994, long before the ordinance went into effect, and has taken no serious strides toward improving the city's homeless situation. He didn't even seem to react when the Free to Camp Coalition led a group of carolers to his house on Christmas Eve. They left a sack of coal and a "naughty list" on his doorstep.
We're guessing the next mayor can expect similar tidings.
This city needs to realize that it can't round up all its homeless and send them whimpering into the sunset. Tempe should build a shelter for the city's homeless or repeal the camping ordinance. Tempe can't have it both ways.