The ACLU of Texas announced Monday that it has filed a lawsuit on behalf of three homeless Houston residents asking a federal judge to halt the city’s new ordinances limiting panhandling and camping in public.

City Council passed the two ordinances last month.

The encampment rule forbids tents or other structures for living in public areas and requires that all of a person’s belongings fit into a three-foot cube; it took effect Friday.

The panhandling rule, which went into effect when it was signed April 12, extended the city’s restrictions against impeding a roadway to also forbid blocking a sidewalk or doorway.

“This law shows little respect or sympathy for the impoverished people of Houston,” said Eugene Stroman, who says in the lawsuit that he has been turned away from emergency shelters. “Living in shelters just isn’t an option for us, but if you can’t find your own place to live, you’re treated like a criminal.”

Mayor Sylvester Turner previously has said the laws try to strike a “delicate balance.” The ordinances came as part of his plan to reduce homelessness, panhandling and street issues.”It is simply not acceptable for people to live on the streets. It is not good for them, and it is not good for our city,” Turner said in March. “This is a complicated issue that we will tackle humanely with a meaningful approach that balances the needs of the homeless and the concerns of neighborhoods that they impact.”

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The mayor has said the panhandling ordinance doesn’t put an undue burden on free speech, as the ACLU lawsuit contends.

“We’re not penalizing speech,” he said last month. “We are saying your conduct cannot be such that you impede the traffic or the flow of people who have every right to utilize sidewalks, hike and bike trails and their doorways.”

Trisha Trigilio, staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas, said in a news release that the city has “admirably managed to reduce homlessness by pursuing sensible and compassionate solutions. But these latest ordinances abandon that humane approach. The City says they’re meant to get people into shelters with ‘tough love,’ but the truth is the shelters are full and Houston’s homeless have nowhere else to go.”However, the Houston Police Department captain who oversees the mental health division told the Chronicle on Friday that he was optimistic about shelter beds.

“Right now, the shelters are working with us and saying that if somebody tells us they want shelter, we’re going to get them shelter that night,” Capt. William Staney said. “That might not work for 100 percent of the people, but it will work for almost all of them.”

Another legal activist took issue with the use of police and other resources to enforce the two laws.

“Laws that criminalize homelessness are ineffective, waste limited public resources and violate basic human and constitutional rights,” said Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. “The Law Center shares the ACLU’s concerns that Houston’s new ordinances governing outdoor camping and panhandling violate homeless persons’ constitutional rights.”

Capt. Staney said Friday that Houston police would slowly ramp up enforcement. He said no one was arrested, cited or even formally warned on Friday. However, police eventually would take away people’s property if they keep more belongings than would fit in a 3-foot cube, as the ordinance requires.

The police department circulated a memo Friday emphasizing that arrest is a last resort and that officers must first offer access to medical help, addiction treatment and temporary shelter before taking action under the new rules.

The ACLU lawsuit, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, contends that the ordinances infringe on civil rights and violate several constitutional guarantees: First Amendment free-speech rights, Fourth Amendment freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, Eighth Amendment prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment, and Fourteenth Amendment limits on vague laws.

Another plaintiff, Tammy Kohr, said the issue went beyond practical matters.

“The main thing these laws take from us is our dignity,” Kohr said. “We’re not bad people. We’re just trying to survive.”

The lawsuit also asks the judge to grant class-action status, meaning the three plaintiffs can sue on behalf of all people similarly affected by the laws.

For more information, please visit www.chron.com.