City Leaders Discuss Controversial Ordinances – Including Where Homeless People Can Use The Bathroom

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Punishing those with nowhere to go. One of the hottest debates in Charlotte for years was the topic for the most recent City Council meeting.

The City Council voted to re-criminalize a handful of laws, which displeasured many in the crowd. Some in attendance calling it an attack on the homeless.

Item number 7 on the Charlotte City Council agenda on Monday night was the number one item everyone seemed to be talking about – where homeless people can go to the bathroom.

The back and forth centered around some of the seven recommendations from CMPD to criminalize ordinances that were decriminalized a few years ago. Ordinances like open containers, sleeping on public property like benches, and making it illegal to urinate or defecate in public. Many consider the criminalization of these ordinances to be an attack on the homeless.

Those against criminalizing someone who relieves themselves in public point to the lack of public restrooms. The ACLU of North Carolina says no one should be criminalized for attending to their biological needs for sleep and basic bodily functions.

Testy moments during the meeting ended with Mayor Vi Lyles threatening to kick some out.

There was an attempt to only pass two of the criminalized ordinances of public masturbation and unauthorized persons on parking lots. The other ordinances would have been tabled for six months, for a plan to be put in place. It did not pass.