Village of Liberty Passes Local Law to Ban Sleeping or Camping in Public Areas

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The Village Board of Liberty approved a local law on Aug. 21 to prohibit camping or sleeping in village parks, sidewalks, streets, and other public areas.

Inside the Liberty Municipal Building on Main Street, more than 40 community members attended a public hearing on Thursday, drawing mixed support and opposition to the local law.

“We’re not trying to punish homeless people, but we are concerned about their safety and the safety of the people who choose to walk on the sidewalk,” said Village of Liberty Mayor Joan Stoddard.

Sullivan County resident JoAnne Omar urged Mayor Stoddard to reconsider the law, saying she was “perplexed” at the board’s decision to relocate people given the county’s housing crisis.

“What I’m asking is, shouldn’t you be more concerned about services other than just clearing them out?” said Omar.

The Village Board says the law is needed because it believes sitting, sleeping, or camping on Village property poses a “public health and safety hazard and interferes with the rights of others to use the areas for which they were intended.” The local law defines a campsite as any place where chairs, blankets, or other items to sit on are placed for the purpose of sitting or laying.

Sullivan County resident Jen Duncan has been in the county for more than 15 years and is currently homeless. At the public hearing, Duncan criticized the board’s plans to connect unhoused residents with social services, saying she has yet to receive the help she needs.

“I have not received services from [the Department of Social Services], even though it’s been stipulated in court that I am disabled with this disability that is permanent in total and that I will receive accessible services and accommodations. That has not happened,” she said.

A study from the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that encampment sweeps and forcibly relocating homeless people could lead to significant jumps in overdose deaths, hospitalizations, and mortality. Duncan tried to speak longer than the village’s three-minute public comment limit, urging that her life would be most at risk by the law, but the Village of Liberty Mayor Stoddard and Village Attorney Gary Silver proceeded with closing the meeting.

The local law comes one month after President Trump signed an executive order that seeks to make it easier for states and cities to remove outdoor encampments. However, Stoddard said the Village Board had been deliberating the local ordinance for six months, long before the Executive order was announced.

Stoddard said she hopes the law will help the Village to connect residents to services like Sullivan County’s Department of Social Services (DSS), but noted that social services are a county issue, not one “the village has any control over.”

Several community members in favor of the local law said it was necessary to keep residents safe and called for tighter public safety measures. “What about the older people and people who are afraid to come into the building?” said Anna Barbindi. “There’s two sides of this coin.”

Liberty resident Thelma McIver, who was born and raised in Liberty, said this is the first time she’s seen homeless people on the village’s sidewalks and streets. But she’s not so sure the new law will address the county’s broader systemic issues of unaffordability and shrinking services.

“DSS [is] only gonna be able to do so much because you know as well as I know there is limited housing available,” said McIver. “All we’re doing is putting a band-aid because we haven’t solved the issue.”

Liberty bans outdoor sleeping, highlighting the county’s housing crunch

Sullivan County currently provides emergency housing to 260 individuals as of August 2025. For more than 15 years, the county has relied on a patchwork system of placing unhoused people in hotels and motels across Liberty and Monticello.

Past legislative bodies have been unsuccessful in building a temporary housing shelter or facility since 2009. In 2024, the emergency housing model cost Sullivan County $3.4 million alone. Those costs are likely to jump as hotels raise their room rates, according to Sullivan County Commissioner John Liddle.

The Village Board’s decision to ban outdoor sleeping or camping in public areas comes when the Sullivan County legislature has grappled with where to build the county’s gateway housing facility for months. After the legislature failed to approve a site location in April, legislators have gone back to the drawing board to find a new location.

READ: Sullivan County Legislature Scrambles for a New Housing Shelter Location

District 5 Legislator Catherine Scott and District 6 Legislator Luis Alvarez both attended the public hearing on Thursday and pushed Liberty’s Village Board to endorse the gateway housing facility.

“We need votes from legislators and that has to come from public pressure,” said Scott.

The Village of Liberty filed the local law with New York State on Monday, and the law is now in effect immediately.

Image: Community members spoke against and in favor of the local law banning outdoor sleeping at the Aug. 21 public hearing in Liberty, N.Y. (Photo Credit: Kimberly Izar)