The Supreme Court\u00a0appeared deeply at odds on Monday over a small city\u2019s ban on homeless people sleeping in public places, with emotional statements from the bench over society\u2019s competing civic responsibilities. \u00a0<\/p>\n
It comes as\u00a0jurisdictions across the nation \u2013 but especially in the West \u2013 struggle with a record double-digit surge in the homeless population.<\/p>\n
The current appeal comes from officials in Grants Pass, Oregon, with almost 40,000 residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Municipal ordinances there ban sleeping or camping on streets, under bridges and in parks or other publicly owned property. The ban includes the use of bedding, pillows, cardboard boxes, sleeping bags, stoves or fires \u2013 with fines starting at $295.<\/p>\n
At issue is whether the enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property \u2013 but\u00a0targeting the unhoused \u2013 constitute \u2018cruel and unusual punishment\u2019 prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.<\/p>\n
The city argues its policies are fairly\u00a0enforced, banning camping for everyone on public land. But homeless advocates say it criminalizes those who live outdoors without a stable place to call home.<\/p>\n
In the contentious\u00a0two-and-a-half hours of arguments, the justices repeatedly questioned whether the city\u2019s law banned conduct or status \u2013 just camping on public property vs. the larger\u00a0situation of being homeless.<\/p>\n
\u2018Your ordinance goes way beyond that,\u2019 said Justice Elena Kagan. \u2018Your statute says that person cannot take himself and himself only, and can\u2019t take a blanket and sleep someplace without it being a crime\u2026 It seems like you\u2019re criminalizing a status.\u2019<\/p>\n
But others on the bench said these difficult on-the-ground discretionary decisions should best be left out of the hands of judges.<\/p>\n
\u2018Municipalities have competing priorities,\u2019 said Chief Justice John Roberts. \u2018What if there are lead pipes in the water? Do you build the homeless shelter or do you take care of the lead pipes? Why would you think these nine people [on the court] are the best to weigh those policy judgments?\u2019<\/p>\n
Cities across the country will watch how the nine justices rule on this balancing act between helping the misfortunate with a range of public benefits vs. the financial and social costs associated, including crime,\u00a0mental health and sanitation concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
San Francisco in an amicus brief said it spent over $672 million last year to provide shelter and housing for the homeless, but public encampments continue to grow. The city says its inability to enforce its own laws \u2018has made it more difficult to provide services\u2019 to that population.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About 600 people are estimated to be involuntarily unsheltered in Grants Pass, a scenic area surrounded by the Klamath Mountains in the southwest part of the state along the Rogue River.<\/p>\n
City leaders have expressed frustration about not being able to open an appropriate\u00a0government-run indoor shelter space, citing a variety of competing community views over funding, size and location.<\/p>\n
To fill the gap, nonprofit and religious volunteers provide hot food and health care in the unhoused community, in areas like Tussing Park, which is dotted with picnic benches and landscaping.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The privately operated Grants Pass Gospel Rescue Mission offers immediate and long-term assistance. And the Mobile Integrative Navigation Team (MINT) provides free transportation for medical care and other vital services.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In its appeal to the high court, the city says its enforcement scheme \u2018does not prohibit modest fines and short jail terms, which are neither cruel nor unusual by any established measure, for camping on public property.\u2019<\/p>\n
It said a federal appeals court ruling striking down its laws, \u2018prevents governments from proactively addressing the serious social policy problems associated with the homelessness crisis, and calls into doubt many other criminal prohibitions.\u2019<\/p>\n
But lawyers for homeless individuals and support organizations say singling out and criminalizing this vulnerable population is not the answer, and only creates more civic problems for everyone.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018There is simply no place in Grants Pass for them to find affordable housing or shelter,\u2019 said the United Community Action Network, a nonprofit group that serves homeless people in Josephine County. \u2018They are not choosing to live on the street or in the woods.\u2019<\/p>\n
Local residents say the encampments create unsafe and unhealthy conditions.<\/p>\n
\u2018Families are afraid to go to the parks,\u2019 said Brock Spurgeon. \u2018And it\u2019s not just the campers or the homeless. It\u2019s the drug use and the vandalism and the excessive littering. Needles on the ground, broken meth pipes on the ground. So no one wants to take their kids anymore.\u2019<\/p>\n
In court arguments, every justice agreed the homeless problem was serious and needed to be addressed immediately, but there were disagreements over how and who should tackle it.<\/p>\n
\u2018Before extending a constitutional precedent, we usually think about whether state or local law already achieves those purposes, so that the federal courts aren\u2019t micromanaging the homeless policy,\u2019 said Justice Brett Kavanaugh. \u2018And it\u2019s on a daily basis, when you work with the homeless\u2026 how many people are going to show up to the food bank.\u2019<\/p>\n
But Justice Sonia Sotomayor suggested the city here failed in that basic civic responsibility.<\/p>\n
\u2018The intent is to remove every homeless person and give them no public space to sit down with a blanket or fall asleep with a blanket,\u2019 she said. \u2018Where do we put them when every city, every village, every town lacks compassion? If they pass a law identical to this, where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves [by] not sleeping?\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The homeless population in the U.S. rose 12% last year to its highest level, according to a federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD). That is about 653,000 people in the January 2023 snapshot study.<\/p>\n
California, Washington, Florida and New York represent more than half the homeless population, with California alone comprising 28%, according to the HUD study.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Officials cite a dramatic rise in rents, as well as a drop in coronavirus pandemic-related public assistance.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department is supporting neither party in the Grants Pass case, but says a federal appeals court properly concluded ordinances punishing people for sleeping outside where there is insufficient shelter space are unconstitutional. But it added that applying its ruling to all homeless people was wrong, \u2018without requiring a more particularized inquiry into the circumstances of the individuals to whom those ordinances may be applied.\u2019<\/p>\n
The key to resolving this case could be how the Supreme Court applies its 1962 precedent in Robinson v. California. There, the justices concluded the Eighth Amendment\u2019s ban on \u2018cruel and unusual punishment\u2019 prevents cities from criminalizing a person\u2019s drug status \u2013 for simply being an \u2018addict.\u2019 But states could prosecute drug \u2018conduct\u2019 \u2013 buying, selling or possession of narcotics.<\/p>\n
The case is City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson (23-175).<\/p>\n\n
The Supreme Court\u00a0appeared deeply at odds on Monday over a small city\u2019s ban on homeless people sleeping in public places, with emotional statements from the bench over society\u2019s competing civic responsibilities. \u00a0 It comes as\u00a0jurisdictions across the nation \u2013 but especially in the West \u2013 struggle with a record double-digit surge in the homeless population. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}