Pendleton officials think state should play bigger role in addressing homelessness
By Terry Murry on Thursday, September 3rd, 2026 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
PENDLETON – The city of Pendleton saw the court case brought by five homeless women against its resting ordinances dismissed from court yesterday. The decision by Third Circuit Court Judge Dan Hill was based on the city rewriting the ordinances to reflect the latest state laws.
All involved say that homelessness is a problem that needs to be addressed, but at the state and federal level, not city by city. City Manager Robb Corbett and Councilmember Brett Mulvihill said in an interview before the court decision was handed down that the problem should be handled by the state, since the state created it.
“Frankly, it’s ridiculous that the city is in a situation that we have to lead this effort,” Corbett said.
Mulvihill pointed his finger at Salem.
“The state has dumped this problem on cities,” he said. I believe there are less than 700 beds available statewide for people with mental health issues.”
The councilmember said it all began when the state voted to legalize personal amounts of narcotics.
“Basically, there’s no place to take these people and they’ve been thrown on the street,” he said. “It’s a tragedy and cities are faced with how to deal with it. The state basically legalized drug use a few years ago and tried to rein it in but it’s still an issue, and so there are these problems that the state has created that have been dumped on cities and, frankly, it’s not our responsibility to deal with these, but we have to of course because it’s now in our community.”
