Monday night, Troy City Council passed Ordinance O-32-2026 by a vote of 8 to 1, with First Ward Councilman Jeffrey Whidden casting the lone “no” vote. The new law bans sleeping and camping on sidewalks, in parks, and on other public property, but it also requires police to try to offer shelter and services before writing a ticket.
Before Monday’s vote, a number of residents came forward asking Council to delay or deny the ordinance. As a consequence, there may be many residents that are sad or frustrated about the outcome. That is fair. But before we move on, it is worth stopping to look at how this law was made. Because regardless of how you may individually feel about the result, the process itself was something Troy should be proud of.
It Took Nearly Two Months, Not Two Weeks
This ordinance did not show up on an agenda and get rushed through in a committee one night and passed without comment a week later. It first went to Council’s Safety and Health Committee on July 27. From there, it moved through another committee meetings, three full council readings, and more rounds of citizen comments. That is almost two months of public back-and-forth before a final vote.
Compare that to how some laws get passed at City Hall. Cities can suspend the normal three-reading rule. They can attach an “emergency clause” that lets a law take effect immediately, skipping the waiting period. In fact, that same Monday night, Council used emergency language to fast-track four other pieces of legislation, from a cybersecurity contract to a demolition grant application. Those are normal, low-stakes moves for routine business.
O-32-2026 did not get that treatment. It went through all three readings. The emergency clause that was in the administration’s original draft was stripped out. Council let the clock run so the community could keep talking.
The Final Version Looked Nothing Like the First Draft
Here is what can not be overlooked by the community: the ordinance Council passed Monday night is a different piece of legislation than the one the city administration first proposed.
Over the past two months, Council added real protections. Before police can write a ticket, an officer must make a genuine effort to offer shelter, transportation, medical care, mental-health services, or addiction treatment. A citation is supposed to come only after that offer is made and turned down. Police can still act immediately if there is a safety risk, a fire hazard, or blocked emergency access. But the everyday version of this law is not “citation first, ask questions later.” It is closer to “offer help first, and apply consequences only when help is refused.”
Council members did not write these protections in a vacuum. They came from listening to residents. Field advocate Jay Yoder, who has spent seven years doing near-daily street outreach with people experiencing homelessness in Troy, submitted a memo to Council the night of the vote that gave the closest “on the ground” accounting of what homelessness in this community looks like. Council member Severt said publicly that he and Yoder had spent roughly five hours together over the prior two weeks going through the ordinance and the issues at hand. That is a council member doing homework with someone who actually knows the people this law will affect.
Council Members Explained Their Votes Out Loud
Something else happened Monday night that does not happen at every council meeting: a number of council members took to the microphone and explained their reasoning in plain language, before the vote was cast.
Third Ward Council Member Madison Hickman said the ordinance “does not make homelessness illegal” and announced she is now asking the police department to start documenting every outreach attempt: which shelters were contacted, whether a bed was actually open, whether transportation was offered, and when help was turned down. That is not a vague promise. It is a specific, checkable commitment that will let the public see whether the law is working the way it was described.
Sixth Ward Council Member Jeffrey Schilling said something even more direct: if the community comes back with a better solution in three or six months, he believes Council would be willing to replace this ordinance with something better. That is a standing invitation, made on the record, not a closed door.
At-Large Council Member Susan Westfall tearfully shared that a family member of hers has experienced homelessness more than once. She said it while getting emotional in front of a packed room. That is not a comfortable thing to do at a podium, and it mattered because it showed her vote was not an abstract policy position. It came from her own lived experience.
Second Ward Council Member Kristie Marshall drew a distinction that is worth remembering: this law, in her view, is not aimed at people who lose a job or fall on hard times and are willing to accept help. It is aimed at situations where help has been repeatedly offered and repeatedly refused. Reasonable people can disagree with where that line should sit. But she explained her thinking instead of hiding behind a silent “yes” vote.
And Mr. Whidden cast the only “no” vote. Whatever his exact reasoning, he was not punished for it, shouted down, or pressured to change his vote to make it unanimous. A 8-1 vote with real dissent, aired publicly, is healthier than a unanimous vote where disagreement gets buried in a back room.
Why This Matters More Than the Ordinance Itself
Ordinances come and go. Councils amend them, repeal them, and replace them all the time. What is harder to build, and easier to lose, is a habit of governing in the open.
Troy residents packed that room for weeks. Nonprofit leaders, a Harvard-trained street outreach worker, business owners, and people with personal experience of homelessness all had their say. Some wanted the ordinance killed. Some wanted it delayed six months. Some wanted it passed as a tool for police. Council did not just let people vent and then do whatever the administration wanted from the start. The final text changed because people testified, and Council members can point to specific things they changed.
That is what accountable government is supposed to look like. It is not about getting the outcome everyone wants. It is about a process where residents can trace a straight line from what they said in public to what changed in the final document.
The Work Is Not Over
Passing this ordinance does not end the conversation, and several Council members said so themselves. Hickman is now tracking outreach data. Schilling is inviting a better replacement. The Mayor and multiple nonprofit leaders, including Melissa Kleptz of the Troy Foundation and Valerie Mullikin of Veteran and Caregiver Support, are already talking about a cold-weather shelter, cross-agency coordination, and what role the city should play in funding solutions rather than just policing symptoms.
Troy did not solve homelessness Monday night. Nobody claimed it did. What Troy did show is that when a controversial ordinance moves slowly, gets amended in public, and gets explained out loud by the people casting votes, residents end up with a law they can at least understand, even if they still disagree with it.
That is the standard we should expect on every difficult issue that comes before this Council, not just this one.
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