About a decade after losing her job and becoming homeless in the small city of Grants Pass, Oregon, Debra Blake joined two other homeless residents in suing the city over a set of local ordinances that, in their view, criminalized the act of sleeping outside.
Blake and her co-plaintiffs argued that there were no shelters where they could stay in the city of 38,000, that they had no place else to go, and that the city’s anti-camping and anti-sleeping ordinances represented “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of their constitutional rights.
Among other things, the ordinances banned the use of rudimentary items such as blankets and cardboard boxes for protection against the weather.
