Supreme Court allows for laws criminalizing homelessness (2024)

The Supreme Court will allow thecriminalization of homelessness after a majority ruled to allow laws that allow police to ticket, fine or arrest those who sleep in public areas.

On Friday, the conservative majority of the justices disagreed with a group of unhoused people in the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, who argued that a series of laws punishing people for sleeping outside was considered cruel and unusual punishment and in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

“Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion.

“At bottom, the question this case presents is whether the Eighth Amendment grants federal judges primary responsibility for assessing those causes and devising those responses,” he wrote. “It does not.”

The series of laws, which have become known as “camping bans,” allows police to charge people for sleeping or camping on publicly-owned property. That can include using a blanket or pillow to sleep outside. Several cities and states have already passed laws targeting those who sleep outsidde as they try to reduce their homeless populations.

In her dissent with the court’s two other liberal justices, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the court’s conservatives ignored the “humanity and dignity” of people experiencing homelessness and instead “almost exclusively” sided with the interests of local governments.

Their decision “leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested,” she wrote.

“The Constitution provides a baseline of rights for all Americans rich and poor, housed and unhoused,” Sotomayor added. “This Court must safeguard those rights even when, and perhaps especially when, doing so is uncomfortable or unpopular.”

Gorsuch said the liberal justices were “gravely mistaken.”

“We hold nothing of the sort,” he wrote for the court’s majority.

“As we have stressed, cities and States are not bound to adopt public-camping laws. They may also choose to narrow such laws,” he added. “Beyond all that, many substantive legal protections and provisions of the Constitution may have important roles to play when States and cities seek to enforce their laws against the homeless.”

Gorsuch also appeared to agree that the US is experiencing a “crisis” of homelessness but suggested that local governments and residents were “equally” impacted because they are “forced to navigate” around unhoused people.

Grants Pass officials argued the laws, enacted in 2013, were created to make it more “uncomfortable” for people to sleep outside after locals raised safety concerns.

In the city of less than 40,000 people, as many as 600 people experience homelessness per day in part due to its lack of affordable housing, low vacancy rate and high barrier for individuals to stay in a homeless shelter.

Despite the obvious challenges, the city still chose to impose a $295 fine for using blankets, pillows or cardboard boxes to sleep within the city and added a $242 charge for not paying the fine. They also implemented a rule that allows police to ban a person from city property if they receive two citations – that punishment carries a penalty of up to 30 days in jail and a $1,250 fine.

Several cities and states are already speeding through similar legislation targeting unhoused people. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a measure into law earlier this year that bans “public camping or sleeping” – including the presence of “bedding or pillows” – on “any” public property, such as public parks.

“We know the court was never going to solve homelessness,” said Jesse Rabinowitz, campaign and communications director for the National Homelessness Law Center. “The best way to combat growing criminalization is to go on the offense and ensure that everybody has housing that meets their needs.”

During oral arguments in April, attorneys for the city said that local governments should have the authority to regulate homelessness, not courts.

Many of the justices raised concerns about the plaintiffs in the case have standing – or the authority to challenge a law.

Hannah Lebovits, a researcher from the University of Texas at Arlington studying homelessness, said that such “deterrence logic” – designing laws around the idea that “homelessness needs to be uncomfortable” in the hopes that people will end their own homelessness – only exacerbates the crisis.

“It is hard to imagine a starker example of excessive punishment than fining and jailing a person for the basic human act of sleeping,” according to Scout Katovich, staff attorney in the Trone Center for Justice and Equality at the ACLU.

Friday’s decision sets “a dangerous precedent that will cause undue harm to people experiencing homelessness and give free rein to local officials who prefer pointless and expensive arrests and imprisonment, rather than real solutions,” according to Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

“At a time when elected officials need to be focused on long-term, sustainable solutions that are grounded in evidence – including funding the affordable housing and supportive services that their constituents need — this ruling allows leaders to shift the burden to law enforcement,” she added. “This tactic has consistently failed to reduce homelessness in the past, and it will assuredly fail to reduce homelessness in the future.”