Eight months after five unhoused residents sued the city of Pendleton over laws restricting where they could rest in public, the city has reached a settlement agreement.

Under the proposed agreement unveiled last week, the city must expand its public resting period and invest money in homelessness services. The Pendleton City Council has to approve the deal and is set to discuss it at a public hearing Monday.

The settlement comes amid growing debate over visible homelessness in Pendleton. The city has faced public backlash over its response from both residents who think the city’s approach is too lenient and those who think it’s already too harsh.

The city council passed its first resting ordinance in 2020. The policy outlined where people could sleep outside between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. while banning them from sleeping on streets, sidewalks, alleys and other public rights-of-way. The council amended it in 2025 to ban sleeping in public facilities or buildings, which included benches at bus stops.

On behalf of a group of unhoused residents, the Oregon Law Center and Legal Aid Services of Oregon filed a lawsuit in state court last October. They alleged that the rules around public sleeping were unfair, hard to follow and left them few places to sleep at night.

According to a city press release, the settlement will expand the resting period in designated areas from eight hours in the evening to 24 hours. Additionally, the city will waive fines for violations of the city’s existing resting ordinance and set aside $120,000 for expanded sheltering and day center services.

“All Pendletonians should be able to sit in the park or walk down the sidewalk without fear of discrimination and fines,” Allison Nasson, a legal fellow at Oregon Law Center, said in a statement. “The new ordinances will provide clarity to everyone, and give unhoused residents some relief so they can focus on rebuilding their lives.”

The residents behind the lawsuit also praised the settlement.

“These laws will make things better than they used to be,” plaintiff Sara Shaver said in a statement. “We’ll be able to shelter without risking criminal charges and tickets we can’t afford to pay.”

Pendleton Mayor McKennon McDonald initially called the lawsuit “unnecessary litigation,” but the city never made an argument in court. A hearing to decide on a permanent injunction the plaintiffs filed was postponed multiple times while the two sides negotiated a settlement.

In a Friday press release, the city detailed the challenge of mounting a legal defense. The city’s insurance would not cover the cost of litigation and, regardless of the result of the lawsuit, the city would likely still need to make changes to its resting policies to comply with state law.

Pendleton will not have to pay the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees or admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, according to the city.

The city council that will vote on the settlement will be very different from the council that will be tasked with overseeing it.

Neighbors for a Better Pendleton, a community group that backs stricter homelessness laws, supported a slate of five city council candidates in the May primary. Bolstered by thousands of dollars from a local political action committee, three candidates supported by the group decisively won on election night, with a fourth winning a narrow race after all the votes were tabulated. The new councillors will take office in January.

While homelessness had been an issue in Pendleton for years amid a lack of affordable housing, it came to a head last summer when Neighbors for a Better Pendleton rallied residents to push for tougher laws on homelessness at a city council meeting.

City council chambers weren’t large enough to accommodate the hundreds of people who wanted to attend that meeting. This time, the public hearing on the settlement will be held at the city’s convention center.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/06/23/pendleton-settlement-unhoused-residents/