Local opinion: Tucson’s camping bans will backfire if passed

The Mayor and Council are considering new laws (Ordinances 12150 & 12151) to ban camping in washes and parks in upcoming public hearings. Allegedly, this is to provide the City with legal protections against lawsuits allowed by Prop 312. If passed, these new camping bans will not protect the City of Tucson from exposure to 312 lawsuits. In fact, it will increase their likelihood.

First, some background on Prop 312. AZ State law ARS 42-17451 allows private property owners to apply annually for reimbursement of their property taxes (and no more) if they incur documented and reasonable expenses to their property as the result of specific “public nuisance” behaviors. Reimbursement can be requested if a city is, “adopting and following a policy, pattern, or practice that does not enforce existing laws prohibiting illegal camping, obstructing a public thoroughfare, loitering, panhandling, urinating or defecating in public, consuming alcoholic beverages in public, or possessing or using illegal substances; or maintaining such public nuisance” (ARS 42-17451).

One motivation behind Tucson’s camping ban proposals is that Prop 312 will bring a flood of lawsuits by property owners seeking to recoup small sums of property tax for which they have wrongfully been denied reimbursement. For context, City of Tucson property tax rates charge less than $44 for every $100,000 of property value. That is reimbursement under $150 for the average Tucson homeowner (average home price $329K on Zillow). But how could the City of Tucson believe laws criminalizing camping will protect them from 312 litigation?

Far from solving the issue, the proposed camping bans are likely to backfire in two major ways.

Firstly, banning camping in washes and parks will be totally ineffective to remove the “nuisance” since there is nowhere else where campers are welcome. As was recently outlined in the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness Gaps Analysis, we are over 7,000 beds short to meet the demand for shelter created by the housing crisis. There are no sanctioned campsites in Tucson. Campers will not simply disappear. Creating prohibitions on camping without providing alternatives will not eliminate camping, so the City will not be able to effectively enforce the new laws.

Secondly, the camping bans will expand the potential for nuisance claims from property owners as campers are pushed from public spaces (washes and parks) to private spaces (residential and commercial areas). Banning camping in washes and parks will increase interaction between campers and law enforcement in those locations. Campers do not want to interact with police, as encampment clearings are traumatic events for the unhoused. Avoidance of police interactions in washes and parks will push campers into other areas. Eliminating washes and parks as an option will encourage camping in residential and commercial areas, and visibility of (and liability from) this “nuisance.”

Clearly, the most effective solution to mitigate the “nuisance” behaviors listed under 312 (like camping) is not criminalizing them through ineffective prohibitions. Criminalization will not reduce the “nuisance,” but it will cost the city money for law enforcement personnel and incarceration. According to the City’s website, “to book an inmate costs $495.94 and each day costs the city or county $125.09 per day, which can add up” (Bermudez, 2025). A Friday night’s stay at the Arizona Inn only costs $250, for comparison.

Jail is not housing, and it is not the solution to the housing crisis. Imagine if that money was spent on real solutions to the social problem of homelessness caused by the housing crisis. Campers do not want to defecate, loiter, or sleep out of doors — they are forced to. They live their lives in public because they don’t have access to a safe, private place. The very clear and most effective solution would simply be to provide housing, allowing our unhoused neighbors the basic dignity of private space, which most readers likely enjoy: a door to close, a kitchen, a bathroom, a place to simply exist.