An encampment at Tussing Park in Grants Pass, Ore., which has ticketed, fined and jailed the homeless for sleeping and camping in public spaces, on March 18.MASON TRINCA/The New York Times News Service
Cities in the United States can bar people from camping on parks, sidewalks and other public spaces, the country’s Supreme Court ruled Friday in its most significant homelessness case in decades.
The decision struck down lower-court precedents that had constrained legislators, county commissioners and city councillors from enforcing anti-camping provisions in places such as Grants Pass, a small city in southwest Oregon whose ordinances the court examined.
The city had prohibited camping on sidewalks, streets or alleyways, barred camping on public property and forbade both camping and overnight parking in city parks. Lower courts issued an injunction against those ordinances, however, on the basis that cities could not enforce such provisions unless their number of “practically available” shelter beds exceeded the size of the homeless population.
To do otherwise, lower courts found, would violate a constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
But the Supreme Court, in a case that holds wide-reaching implications for the many urban and rural centres in the western U.S. struggling with large homeless populations, found otherwise.
In a 6-3 decision written by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court cited history, saying that 18th-century England tolerated “certain barbaric punishments like ‘disemboweling, quartering, public dissection, and burning alive.’ “ The Eighth Amendment to the constitution, which bars cruel and unusual punishment “was adopted to ensure that the new Nation would never resort to any of those punishments or others like them” – not, the court found, to prevent the imposition of fines and jail time for people camping in parks.
For Grants Pass, it found, “none of the city’s sanctions qualifies as cruel.” It cited research suggesting that injunctions against such ordinances had actually increased homelessness.
Judges should not constrain the actions of policy makers, the court ruled.
“Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it.”
The importance of the decision was underscored by the court, with a 281-word footnote that notes the immense interest in the case, with nearly two dozen states and organizations that represent thousands of U.S. cities arguing in support of Grants Pass, and its anti-camping ordinances.
Critics, including the three liberal judges who stood in dissent, have argued that the decision opens the door to criminalizing homelessness.
“The majority focuses almost exclusively on the needs of local governments and leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent.
The decision marks “a shameful day for the Supreme Court,” said Jesse Rabinowitz, director of campaigns and communication at the National Homelessness Law Centre in Washington, D.C. “Most Americans – most people – know that throwing someone in jail for sleeping outside with a blanket in the middle of winter is cruel and unusual.”
He took issue with the court’s characterization of the complexities in addressing a highly visible social problem.
“Homelessness is caused by a lack of housing that people can afford – in Grants Pass, in California and across the country, half of Americans struggle to pay rent. That’s not complicated. The solutions are not complicated.”
Helen Cruz, a woman who has spent years in homelessness in Grants Pass and is now an advocate for that community, warned that removing people from parks will displace them to more dangerous places.
“You’re going to pretty much isolate them to the outskirts, out of town. They’re going to go into the mountains,” she said. Other homeless people in Grants Pass have told The Globe and Mail about watching cougars stalk their camps in nearby forests.
For the city of Grants Pass, meanwhile, the ruling clears the way for officials, and police, to bring back community events to parks along the Rogue River that had become home to tent encampments.
The community continues to look for solutions to local homelessness, said Mayor Sara Bristol.
“This doesn’t solve our problem in any way,” she said.
But the decision comes as a relief.
“What we have been looking for is the ability to establish and enforce rules in our parks,” she said. “It’s summer time and we want kids to be able to play, and to have our concerts in the park back.”