The US supreme court will be reviewing an appeals court ruling that officials in cities across the west say bar them from removing unhoused people from public spaces when there are no shelter beds available.
On Friday, the supreme court agreed to hear an appeal from the city of Grants Pass, in south-west Oregon, where in 2022 a three-judge ninth circuit of appeals panel ruled that the city could not enforce its anti-camping ordinance that barred people from using any sort of shelter or bedding equipment on public property.
This ruling was partially based on the 2018 decision in Martin v Boise, a case that ended with the ninth circuit of appeals deciding that pushing people from city sidewalks and clearing encampments without offering shelter violates the US constitution’s cruel and unusual punishment clause.
Police, officials and business owners have contested the decision, arguing that it ties the hands of municipalities that want to clear homeless encampments. Advocates for the unhoused, on the other hand, argue that this decision does not stop local governments from building and investing in support services and shelters, but it does stop people from being punished for sleeping outdoors when they have no other option.
“Homelessness is growing not because cities lack ways to punish people for being poor, but because a growing number of hard-working Americans are struggling to pay rent and make ends meet,” the National Homelessness Law Center said in a statement after the supreme court announcement.
“This case does not limit communities’ response to addressing homelessness. Cities remain free to use any of the many evidence-based approaches that end homelessness, like housing,” the statement continued.
Elected officials across the west urged the justices to take up the case because they say the rulings complicate their efforts to clear tent encampments, which have long existed in west coast cities, but have more recently become more common across the US. The federal count of homeless people reached 580,000 last year, driven by a lack of affordable housing, a pandemic that economically wrecked households, and a lack of access to mental health and addiction treatment.
Republican and Democratic officials alike have filed amicus briefs in support of the city of Grants Pass, which brought the petition after a separate ninth circuit panel ruled that the city could not enforce local ordinances that prohibit people “from using a blanket, pillow, or cardboard box for protection from the elements”.
In his brief, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, said that the reach of the 2018 ruling has expanded far beyond its bounds to create injunctions on good faith efforts by cities to address their ever-worsening homelessness crises.
“The governor supports this modest check on government’s use of criminal prohibitions to address the homelessness crisis … But Martin did not purport to prohibit every effort by state and local governments to clear encampments or to regulate the time, place, and manner in which an unhoused person may sleep,” the brief reads.
Newsom’s state leads the nation in homelessness with more than 180,000 people living without permanent shelter as of January 2023, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s most recent data.
“California has invested billions to address homelessness, but rulings from the bench have tied the hands of state and local governments to address this issue,” Newsom said in a 12 January statement following the supreme court’s announcement. “The supreme court can now correct course and end the costly delays from lawsuits that have plagued our efforts to clear encampments and deliver services to those in need.”
“The issue before the court is whether cities can punish homeless residents simply for existing without access to shelter,” Ed Johnson, a lawyer for homeless people who challenged the Grants Pass ordinances, said in a statement. “Nevertheless, some politicians and others are cynically and falsely blaming the judiciary for the homelessness crisis to distract the public and deflect blame for years of failed policies.”
Cities from Los Angeles to New York have stepped up efforts to clear encampments, records reviewed by the Associated Press show, as public pressure grew to address what some residents say are dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. But despite tens of millions of dollars spent in recent years, there appears to be little reduction in the number of tents propped up on sidewalks, in parks and by freeway off-ramps.
It is unclear whether the case will be argued in the spring or the fall.
Associated Press contributed to this report
