The city said Wednesday it would vigorously defend itself against a class-action lawsuit seeking to block the destruction of personal property from homeless encampment sweeps.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii Foundation in U.S. District Court, charges the city with violating the U.S. Constitution while enforcing its Stored Property Ordinance and Sidewalk Nuisance Ordinance on several occasions in the past year.

Honolulu Corporation Counsel Donna Leong said previous challenges in federal courts have upheld the constitutionality of the laws in question.

“The ordinances support the safety, health, and welfare of all residents of the City and County of Honolulu, and the city believes the ordinances will survive the current challenge,” Leong said in a statement.

The legal challenge occurs as city officials are attempting to clear the growing homeless population in Kakaako. A second sweep in as many weeks is scheduled for Thursday morning.

The lawsuit alleges that the city immediately destroys property rather than impounding and storing seized belongings and giving a fair opportunity to reclaim items.

The suit also alleges that the city has failed to provide notice, receipts or information regarding how property might be recovered.

The suit aims to end what it maintains is the practice of destroying personal property without following proper rules and to require the city to pay damages and attorneys’ fees, to be determined in court.

“City workers took our clients’ food, medicine, government IDs and clothing and destroyed it immediately on the spot,” ACLU Hawaii Legal Director Dan Gluck said at a downtown news conference Wednesday. “Our clients could not do anything about this and were threatened with arrest if they interfered with a government operation.

“Simply put, the government cannot come up to a person on the street and immediately destroy that person’s belongings,” Gluck said. “There was no way for our clients to get their property back or otherwise challenge what the city had done. They had no other recourse but to file this lawsuit.”

The suit highlights an unannounced sweep in Kakaako on Nov. 13, when city officials seized and destroyed food, toys, prescription medication and government identification documents. In some cases, entire tents filled with personal belongings were thrown into a garbage truck and crushed, the suit says.

Plaintiff Tabatha Martin, who has lived on the streets of Kakaako with her husband and 4-year-old daughter for the past two years, said that every time the city comes and throws away her tent, clothes and personal documents, her family has to start over.

Martin, who spoke at Wednesday’s news conference while holding her daughter, said she and her husband are forced to replace their things, using up their savings and keeping them on the street longer.

Recalling the November sweep, Martin said: “We lost our holiday savings. We had enough to get a good dinner.

“Straight up it’s just hard. We’re people, too. We’re working real hard. I can speak on behalf of everybody in Kakaako. We’re working real hard to get back on our feet. But it’s hard,” she said.

“No matter how much you save, it’s never enough. So you either pay rent and starve or you don’t pay rent and you eat.”

Former state Homeless Coordinator Colin Kippen welcomed the lawsuit to help determine whether the city is indeed following the law.

“It’s a question I have wondered about,” he said. “On what basis do we seize this property? And it’s one thing to seize and hold. It’s another to seize and destroy. That’s an irreversible act.”

Kippen added: “From my perspective, this is a healthy conversation to have right now.”

Gluck said the city continues to violate the Constitution in its sweeps by announcing that it will immediately destroy certain items and arrest anyone who gets in the way.

Attorney Kristin L. Holland of Alston, Hunt, Floyd and Ing, which filed the lawsuit with the ACLU, said both the Fourth and 14th amendments prohibit the government from seizing property and destroying it without due process.

The lawsuit charges city employees with failing to give 24 hours’ notice on multiple occasions before seizing property belonging to the homeless, as required.

The 12 plaintiffs named in the lawsuit include two children, who were ages 4 and 3 when the raids occurred.

The Stored Property Ordinance allows the city to remove items left on sidewalks as long as their owners are given 24 hours’ notice. The Sidewalk Nuisance Ordinance allows the city to seize items on city property if they pose a public nuisance.

Both ordinances require the city to store seized items for a minimum of 30 days, unless they are perishable.

Even if the city were to follow the ordinances as written, the procedures violate due process, according to the suit. For example, the city requires the owners of seized property to travel to Kapolei to obtain a waiver to avoid fees and then eventually go to Halawa Valley to get their stuff.

Attorneys for the (de)Occupy Honolulu movement filed a similar federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Stored Property Ordinance in December 2012. The following May, the lawsuit was settled with the city agreeing to outline protections for the group members’ property. One of the stipulations was that a tent owner be allowed to remove items from a tent before it is impounded.

Another suit, filed by (de)Occupy Honolulu last year, ended with two of its members receiving $16,400 to settle claims against the city. The lawsuit alleged that the Sidewalk Nuisance Ordinance was unconstitutional. In the end, a judge forced the city to change its procedures to make it clear an owner of seized property can request a hearing to waive the fee if “necessary” items are taken.