The Supreme Court ruled that cities could fine or arrest unhoused people who lack other shelter and camp in public areas, allowing California and other Western states to clear homeless encampments more easily.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, said fining and arresting homeless people does not violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishments under the Eighth Amendment.
The ruling could spur anti-camping policies around the country, but especially in Western states where court rulings prohibited officials from doing so. California officials had a strong interest in the case, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, as the state grapples with some of the highest rates of homelessness and housing costs in the United States.
The case is the most important to reach the Supreme Court concerning homelessness in 40 years, housing advocates have said.
The court’s decision, siding with the Oregon mountain town of Grants Pass at the center of the case, opens the way for officials to limit homeless encampments and fine and arrest unhoused people sleeping outside with as little as a blanket.
Liberal and some conservative justices appeared skeptical at arguments in the case of the town’s ordinances, which effectively banned homeless encampments in Grants Pass. But the overarching question justices returned to was whether courts should be involved in the decision-making of how municipalities regulate homelessness.
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, decided that local governments should regulate homelessness as they see fit, even if those laws are unpopular. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority with all the conservatives. concurring. The three liberal justices dissented.
“Yes, people will disagree over which policy responses are best; they may experiment with one set of approaches only to find later another set works better; they may find certain responses more appropriate for some communities than others,” Gorsuch wrote. “But in our democracy, that is their right.”
“Nor can a handful of federal judges begin to ‘match’ the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding ‘how best to handle’ a pressing social question like homelessness.”
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the dissenters, saying that the decision would criminalize homelessness and harm vulnerable populations.
“This court, too, has a role to play in faithfully enforcing the Constitution to prohibit punishing the very existence of those without shelter,” she wrote. “I remain hopeful that someday in the near future, this court will play its role in safeguarding constitutional liberties for the most vulnerable among us.”
California Republicans and Democrats wanted the Supreme Court to take up the case for the same reason: clear legal direction on evicting homeless encampments.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and others have said lower courts, relying on broad interpretations of judicial decisions that led to the Supreme Court case, have prevented officials from evicting homeless encampments even when shelter beds were available.
The number of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. rose a record 12% from 2022 to 2023, with estimates exceeding 653,000 people in January 2023, according to the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s most recent annual report. In California, more than 180,000 people were experiencing homelessness at any given point in January 2023.
What is Grants Pass v. Johnson?
The question at the center of City of Grants Pass v. Johnson is whether penalizing people for camping in public areas — from a parked car to a tent at the park or a blanket on the sidewalk — when they have nowhere else to go violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.”
The case originated from Grants Pass, a southwest Oregon town of about 40,000 people, which over a decade ago attempted to ban unhoused people from sleeping in public spaces. The city council instituted fines for people camping outside, even those using as little as a blanket or cardboard box, that could lead to criminal charges.
Grants Pass has one overnight shelter for adults with 138 beds. But the shelter, the Gospel Rescue Mission, has a Christian focus and strict restrictions such as no pets, drugs or alcohol and required attendance at twice daily religious services that make it unpalatable or inaccessible to many.
There are about 600 people experiencing homelessness in Grants Pass. Judges have written that there is no adequate shelter for unhoused people there.
In 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Western states, decided in Martin v. City of Boise that the Eighth Amendment prohibited local governments from criminalizing “sitting, sleeping, or lying outside on public property for homeless individuals who cannot obtain shelter.”
The appellate court relied on a 1962 Supreme Court decision that said the Eighth Amendment prevented criminalizing someone’s status — in this case, homelessness. The 1962 case, Robinson v. California, specifically regarded the status of being addicted to drugs.
Following the Ninth Circuit decision, lawyers representing unhoused residents sued Grants Pass over the ordinances. A federal judge in an Oregon court ruled in 2020 that due to the lack of shelter, punishing homeless people sleeping outside with makeshift bedding violated the Eighth Amendment.
In 2022, the Ninth Circuit agreed. Civil fines that were intertwined with criminal punishments, like the ones in Grants Pass, were blocked there and in Western states, including California.
The Court overturned both Ninth Circuit rulings in the decision released Friday.
What did California lawmakers want the court to do?
Since the Ninth Circuit rulings, some judges have blocked cities from evicting encampments unless there are enough shelter beds for its entire homeless population. Legislators have said the appellate decisions were confusing and did not properly distinguish what is voluntary versus involuntary homelessness.
Newsom’s lawyers had urged the Supreme Court in a brief toward a narrow interpretation that sided with neither Grants Pass nor lawyers for that city’s unhoused people.
Officials should be allowed to restrict where encampments are and clear them if there is a health or safety threat, Newsom and other lawmakers argue, while ensuring there are services available to unhoused residents.
Advocates and progressive California lawmakers argued in a separate brief that restricting camping when there are no or limited shelter options is inhumane and costly. Advocates say fining, ticketing and jailing people who can’t afford housing increases homelessness, perpetuates poverty and criminalizes the status of being unhoused.
Instead, they say, officials should focus more on bolstering affordable housing and addressing poverty, which disproportionately affects Black, Latino and Indigenous people.
Some California lawmakers had wanted Martin v. Boise overturned, including Republican members of Congress and Sacramento District Attorney Thien Ho, who argued in his own brief that the decision failed to chart course for determining if an individual is involuntarily homeless.
Source Agencies
