Ten months after a group of unhoused Pendleton residents alleged in a lawsuit that the city had made it extremely difficult to find a legal place to sleep at night, both sides met in open court for the first time in nearby Hermiston.

Umatilla County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Hill heard arguments Friday and will now decide which holds more water: Pendleton’s case that it has fundamentally reformed its policies since the initial lawsuit or the plaintiffs’ argument that the rules’ words have changed, but the problems with them haven’t.

At the center of the Pendleton litigation are city rules outlining where and when people can sleep outside, which includes banning them altogether from resting on streets, sidewalks, alleys and other public rights-of-way. People who break these rules face fines and interactions with police.

In October 2025, five unhoused Pendleton residents sued the city over the “resting” policy. They alleged Pendleton’s rules were hard to follow and left unsheltered people with few places to sleep at night. While the city initially pushed back in a public statement, city officials soon entered into settlement negotiations with the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Both sides came to terms on a proposed settlement in June, but the deal was rejected by the Pendleton City Council after a contentious public meeting in which many attendees encouraged the city to fight the lawsuit.

At that public meeting, Chad Jacobs, the attorney the city hired to handle the lawsuit, told the audience that the city was likely to lose the case. But on Friday, Jacobs argued in court that the city had made enough changes to the resting policy since then to alleviate the harm alleged by the lawsuit.

“In Oregon, there is a nearly universal and general rule that when you repeal an ordinance being challenged, the case is now moot,” he said.

Jacobs referenced a July city council meeting in which the council made a number of changes to its rules. Jacobs said the ordinances now regulate “sheltering” rather than “resting,” offer a longer sheltering period in the evening and narrow the scope of public property bans for violations.

The plaintiff’s attorney, Allison Nasson, said her clients were still confused about where they would be allowed to sleep and feared they could be penalized for simply trying to survive.

“The essence of the controversy here is whether the city can lawfully prohibit plaintiffs from engaging in the behavior that they asserted in their complaint is necessary to survive living outside in Pendleton’s weather,” she said. “It is not about the numbers of the ordinances, or the terminology the city uses.”

Hill and the attorneys also briefly discussed a new development in the case.

On Tuesday, the Pendleton City Council plans to vote to declare a state of emergency around homelessness. City officials say the move enables the city to partner with a couple of local nonprofits to open a year-round homelessness shelter, the first of its kind in Pendleton.

Hill asked if opening the shelter could be the “linchpin” in the case, but both attorneys stood by their arguments. Hill said he needed more time to study the case and would issue a ruling within the next 10 days.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/08/28/pendleton-public-sheltering-case/