Salem, OR Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Sit-Lie Rules (2026)

Salem Revised Code Sec. 700(a) prohibits blocking or interfering, or attempting to block or interfere, with any other person along a public sidewalk by any means, including standing on the part of the sidewalk used for pedestrian travel or placing any object or vehicle there, when done with the intent to interfere with free passage. Subsection (b) extends the same prohibition to pedestrian or vehicular entrances of public or private property that abut a public sidewalk, when done with intent to interfere with free ingress or egress.

Subsection (c) exempts otherwise-lawful activity, expressly naming lawful protesting and lawful picketing as protected conduct that the section does not reach. The ordinance, adopted by Ordinance No. 19-2000, is intent-based rather than a flat sit-lie ban: merely sitting or lying on a sidewalk does not by itself violate the section unless the person's conduct is shown to be intended to interfere with someone else's passage. It is cross-referenced directly by the camping ordinance at Sec. 720(f), which clarifies that camping rules do not authorize conduct that Sec.

700 otherwise prohibits, and Sec. 720(b)(9) separately requires every campsite to maintain a minimum 36-inch pedestrian path within a public sidewalk, free of obstruction, tying the two sections together operationally on downtown sidewalks.