An agreement has been reached in a federal lawsuit prompted by the City of Aberdeen’s clearing of the homeless encampment known as the River Camp.

The settlement in the case, Aitken et al v. City of Aberdeen, was signed by Western District Court Judge Ronald B. Leighton Friday. The agreement includes the dismissal of the case with the following guarantees agreed to by the city.

1. The city will pay $45,000 for complete settlement of the lawsuit, including all claims for damages, costs and attorney’s fees, upon receipt of signed release and hold harmless agreements signed by each current plaintiff plus three additional potential plaintiffs. The city’s insurance provider has agreed to this amount and made payment on behalf of the city.

2. The city will provide space in the Temporary Alternative Shelter Location (the tent camp behind City Hall) for all unsheltered plaintiffs, including those currently sheltered there, until March 15, 2020, so long as they abide by the rules of the camp. These sites are being held through Friday Nov. 8, for the eight plaintiffs, and then may be made available to other unsheltered persons in Aberdeen.

3. The city will replace the existing tents with WeatherHYDE tents as planned, no later than 10 days following delivery. These shelters are much more weather-resistant than the tents currently used in the City Hall temporary camp and 150 were purchased by the city for use at the proposed South Michigan Street camp. If the WeatherHYDE tents are not provided before Nov. 28, a warming area will be provided; due to cold weather conditions, a warming area has already been established within the City Hall camp. Larson has said he expected the tents to arrive by mid-month.

The city purchased the River Camp property in June 2018 for $295,000. The city opened the current temporary homeless tent camp next to City Hall in July, 2019, shortly before the remaining homeless were evicted from the River Camp and the property cleared.

The lawsuit was filed in April by eight people who lived in the River Camp and The Rev. Sarah Monroe and Apryl Boling. Monroe and Boling were successful in a previous suit to stop the city’s permit system for visitors to the homeless camp. Monroe is an Episcopal priest, the founder of Chaplains on the Harbor and has ministered to the homeless population for several years.

“The City believes it would have prevailed on the facts (in the lawsuit), and accepted this settlement as a reasonable alternative to litigation that would take more than a year to conclude,” said Larson in a statement released Tuesday. “Such litigation would result in significant legal expenses before any resolution would be reached.”

Monroe said she was pleased the city is taking steps toward addressing the housing crisis in Aberdeen.

“Due to the lawsuit initiated by the plaintiffs, for the first time in Aberdeen, the city has allocated funds to open a sanctioned tent city, housing roughly 70 people,” said Monroe. “In this settlement, all of the plaintiffs are offered a place in this sanctioned tent city and a guarantee that at least some measures will be taken to respond to the cold winter weather.”

Larson said the city will continue to “work with our partners to improve the response to the homelessness crisis in our community. We are committed to solutions which provide adequate shelter to those most vulnerable and reduce the impacts to our neighborhoods and businesses.”

“I am proud of each person who stood up for their rights as human beings in filing this lawsuit and I am proud to stand with them,” said Monroe. “I am very hopeful that the end result of this struggle would be to obtain secure and stable housing, which is something that is increasingly hard to find in Grays Harbor.”

The agreement signed by Leighton was a modification of a previous settlement agreement between the city and the plaintiffs. The previous settlement was based partly on the creation of a longer-term, larger camp site at property on South Michigan Street, which was purchased by the city for that purpose. However, the City Council voted to deny a temporary use permit for the Michigan Street site at its Oct. 9 meeting, creating the need to modify the agreement to its current, now approved form.