Statewide Camping Ban Reintroduced In House 

The House Judiciary Committee advanced a bill Wednesday morning that makes it a criminal offense to camp or store personal belongings on public or private property without authorization. 

Del. Geno Chiarelli, R-Monongalia, is the lead sponsor of House Bill 5319. He was also the lead sponsor of a similar camping ban bill – House Bill 2382 – that the House of Delegates approved during the 2025 regular session.

The version of the bill presented to the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday removed a warning for the first violation and instead immediately charges violators with a misdemeanor and a fine of $250. However Wednesday morning the committee substituted out Chiarelli’s updated bill with the language from HB 2382 that passed the House last year.

During the committee hearing on HB 5319 Tuesday morning, Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, asked why Chiarelli introduced a “harsher” version this year.

“I tried to compare two bills that I’ve seen in other states,” Chiarelli said. “So this isn’t really an outlier when it comes to that.”

Hansen asked why a prior requirement that resources be offered to homeless offenders was removed. 

“The bill doesn’t contemplate homelessness in any capacity. It’s just illicit camping,” Chiarelli said.

Del. Scot Heckert, R-Wood, said that such a policy would create “a statewide uniformity platform for everybody” instead of having varying ordinances from municipality to municipality.

Similar bans have been approved at the local level in Wheeling, Bluefield, Clarksburg and other municipalities in recent years after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson that camping bans do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. 

Morgantown went through a contentious public debate on the matter last year before ultimately approving via a ballot measure a camping ban very similar to HB 2382 and now HB 5319.

Before discussion on HB 5319 closed Tuesday, Hansen invited Rusty Williams, advocacy director at the ACLU of West Virginia, to present his personal experience with homelessness. Williams told the committee that losing work and the cost of treatment after a cancer diagnosis forced him onto the street.

“This issue really hurts my heart personally. I thought when I was laying there getting those chemotherapy treatments that that was the most hopeless feeling I would ever experience,” Williams said. “I thought that was as bad as it gets, until I found myself on the street wondering where my next meal was going to come from or where I was going to lay my head at night.”

Williams said he believes that receiving a citation and a $250 fine at that time in his life would have driven him to suicide.

“I hope that as you’re making these decisions, you take folks’ personal experiences into account, because this will absolutely, if passed in its current form, will absolutely result in members of your society killing themselves,” he said.

During markup and discussion of HB 5319 Wednesday morning, Hansen said he believed that criminalizing homelessness was not the answer to a real issue that needs real solutions. 

“One is that I think the solutions need to come from local communities, and Morgantown is a good example of that,” he said. “People of Morgantown voted, and they voted not to repeal that ordinance, so it is in place in Morgantown. There are a lot of heated feelings on both sides of that issue, but that’s democracy.”

Hansen also urged empathy in finding solutions “for people who are facing these dire situations.”

“Every human life is precious, and the solution, to me, is not criminalizing people who are trying to sleep. I think the solution is access to services,” he said.

Hansen said that individuals experiencing homelessness congregated in urban areas because that is where services and resources are available to them, resources he emphasized are funded by local taxpayers.

“And instead of this legislature sort of having an attitude that these are dirty, democratic cities and we’re going to tell them what to do, there should be an appreciation for the fact that these are generous people and generous cities that are taking care of people from across the state,” he said. “Perhaps more funding could be provided to support them in their efforts to provide the needed services.”

HB 5319 was recommended to the full House with the recommendation that it do pass. It is eligible to be read a first time by the lower chamber as soon as Thursday.