The City of Pendleton is back to defending itself in court against a lawsuit brought by a group of its unhoused residents, pointing to revisions made to city code passed last month.

On Tuesday, the city filed a motion to dismiss a 2025 lawsuit that alleges Pendleton’s rules around public sleeping or resting are unfair, hard to follow and leave unsheltered people with few places to sleep at night. The city’s attorneys argue that some recent amendments made to city ordinances now make the lawsuit “moot.”

The city’s attempts to resolve conflicts over visible homelessness come as Pendleton officials face dueling pressures — on one side from locals favoring stricter policies to deter unhoused residents from sleeping in public, and on the other side, state law that says local governments can’t criminalize sleeping in public if there isn’t adequate shelter space available. The tension has shaped Pendleton’s local elections, and the city’s approach to addressing the pending lawsuit is, as the city manager recently put it, another example of the search for solutions to an “issue that’s plaguing the whole state.”

At the center of the Pendleton litigation are city rules outlining where and when people can sleep outside, while 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.

The council has amended the ordinance multiple times since 2020, including tightening it by adding a ban on sleeping in public facilities or buildings, like bus stop benches, and more recently, loosening it by expanding the night-time grace period hours.

Two nonprofits, the Oregon Law Center and Legal Aid Services of Oregon, filed a lawsuit on behalf of five unhoused residents last October. The complaint alleges that the city’s policies, and the way local police enforced them, were effectively trying to “banish” them from town.

The city entered into negotiations with the plaintiffs’ attorneys under the assumption that Pendleton was likely to lose in court, according to the city’s legal counsel, Chad Jacobs.

The Pendleton City Council considered, but ultimately rejected, a settlement agreement. It would have expanded the sheltering period in designated areas from nighttime to 24 hours, waived outstanding fines levied against people under the old ordinance, and required a six-figure investment in homelessness services.

But the council voted this down in June under intense public pressure.

In July, the council instead passed changes to the resting ordinance, including a three-hour expansion of the overnight sheltering period, a change meant to put Pendleton on more solid legal footing, Assistant City Manager Chuck Byram said at the time.

“That is what this temporary sheltering ordinance is meant to address,” he said at the July 21 council meeting, “And hopefully, let us reset… and move forward with trying to find a solution.”

The city filed the motion to dismiss the lawsuit a week later.

An attorney for the plaintiffs declined to comment.

The Umatilla County Circuit Court hasn’t yet scheduled a hearing date over the city’s motion to dismiss. For their part, the plaintiffs have asked the judge to restrain the city from enforcing its resting ordinance until the case is resolved, and a hearing about that is on the court’s calendar for Aug. 28.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/08/03/pendleton-homelessness-lawsuit-resting-rules/