It is illegal to be without a home
Picture by Maggie Brassil
The Supreme Court of the United States just ruled that cities are allowed to criminalize and ban people from sleeping on public property even when there are no alternative living or shelter options available to them. This ruling overturns the standard set by cases in Grant’s Pass and Martin v Boise which have done a little bit to protect people from the “cruel and unusual punishment” that criminalizing homelessness was seen as. This ruling is disappointing but not surprising. It follows a very clear trend of prioritizing property rights over the rights of human beings and enforces a status quo that makes it increasingly more challenging for people to work themselves out of poverty. Many will argue with this statement, but those who do are cowards who do not know, speak, or work with people who struggle on a daily basis to find solutions to their lack of housing, work, and support. They don’t understand the causes or the impacts of homelessness nor how hard people work to get back on their feet only to have the rug pulled out from under them time and time again.
I am devastated and angered by what this ruling means. It will change the way traumatized people are treated and looked at. It will change the expectations people have of their governmental leadership. It will not push jurisdictions to create housing opportunities and shelter solutions, though it can hardly be said that the Grant’s Pass decision provided much of a motivation for that either. In response to this ruling, the Governor of California said that this change removes “the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years” allowing “unsafe encampments” to be removed. But one only needs to look outside to see how people are being treated, to recognize that their hands weren’t tied and the sweeping of encampments never stopped. Not only that, the sweeping of encampments never solved any problems or made the situation better - people move to a new area, then they move back. Sweeping people does not put them in homes, it does not get them into treatment, it does not connect them with resources they didn’t already have access to. Sweeping people reinforces the lack of security and stability in our communities. Instead of being supportive, sweeps allowed by this new ruling create the type of society that will make homelessness worse.
Los Angeles has a staggering humanitarian crisis on its hands with the number of people living unhoused in their county. However, they have finally seen the first indications of improvement. According to LA’s Mayor, who has led efforts focused on shelters and permanent supportive housing, this ‘ruling “neither will work or save lives,” and it “must not” be used as an excuse to “arrest their way out of this problem.”’
Ultimately, while this ruling is wrong, unjust, frustrating, and demoralizing, it changes nothing. Our cities are now legally allowed to perform sweeps of people living unsheltered on their streets but they had their ways to get that done anyway. We the people need to take our power back. Just because our cities are allowed to do something by legal precedence doesn’t mean that we, the residents and voting constituency, can’t demand better in our own communities. We can’t allow rulings like this to strip the humanity from our neighbors or the empathy from our society. This ruling should represent only one thing: a call to action for all of us to demand from our local leadership better support structures for people experiencing poverty, people with health challenges, everybody struggling with lost and low wages, housing inequity, fallout from predatory loans, past traumatic experiences, and the myriad other factors that contribute to an increased risk of homelessness.
Our cities have been failing us and our neighbors. Nothing has changed because we haven’t demanded enough change. This needs to become a higher priority before it gets so bad that it’s our only priority. Go out and advocate for your neighbors, get to know some people who are being abused by your city, bring them to council meetings so their voices can be heard, tell your leadership that you want to see more attainable housing solutions, more shelters, more mental healthcare facilities, better healthcare coverage and services in general.
Quote from the dissent ready by Justice Sotomayor:
“Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. For some people, sleeping outside is their only option. The City of Grants Pass jails and fines those people for sleeping anywhere in public at any time, including in their cars, if they use as little as a blanket to keep warm or a rolled-up shirt as a pillow. For people with no access to shelter, that punishes them for being homeless. That is unconscionable and unconstitutional. Punishing people for their status is “cruel and unusual” under the Eighth Amendment.“
Additional reading on the ruling:
Supreme Court says cities can ban homeless from sleeping outside - Washington Post
Opinions of the Court - City of Grants Pass V. Johnson (pdf)