The Supreme Court wrestled with major questions about the growing issue of homelessness on Monday as it considered whether cities can ban people from sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking.
The case is considered the most significant to come before the high court in decades on the issue as record numbers of people are without a permanent place to live in the United States.
In California and other Western states, courts have ruled that it’s unconstitutional to fine and arrest people sleeping in homeless encampments if shelter space is lacking.
A cross-section of contending Democratic and Republican officials made it difficult for them to manage encampments, which can have dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. But hundreds of advocacy groups argue that allowing cities to punish people who need a place to sleep will criminalize homelessness and ultimately make the crisis worse as the cost of housing increases.
Dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the court Monday morning with silver thermal blankets and signs like “housing not handcuffs."
That sentiment was echoed Monday in San Diego, which has its own ordinance banning encampments when shelter space is available. About a dozen people protested between San Diego’s federal courthouses downtown.
"Housing ends homelessness, not arrests, not fines," said the protest organizer Martha Sullivan of the group 'San Diego Housing Emergency Alliance.'
Among the protesters was Yusef Miller with the North County Equity and Justice Coalition. He pointed out the racial component of homeless people throughout San Diego County.
“You can see it visually on the streets where nearly 30% of all unhoused people are of African descent, yet we only make up less than 5% of the county," Miller said.
The Justice Department has also weighed in on encampment bans. It argues people shouldn’t be punished just for sleeping outside, but only if there’s a determination they truly have nowhere else to go.
The case before the Supreme Court comes from the rural Oregon town of Grants Pass, which started fining people $295 for sleeping outside to manage homeless encampments that sprung up in the city's public parks as the cost of housing escalated.
The measure was largely struck down by the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which also found in 2018 that such bans violated the Eighth Amendment by punishing people for something they don't have control over. The 9th Circuit oversees nine Western states, including California, which is home to about one-third of the nation's homeless population.
San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan filed an amicus brief in the case, focusing on “the dangers of fires and fentanyl attributable to homeless encampments,” and said the 9th Circuit’s decisions against encampment bans “create confusion, and even arguably a bar, to law enforcement and prosecution of individuals occupying homeless encampments for arson and drug-related offenses.”
Stephan asked for a reversal of the 9th Circuit ruling.
The case comes after homelessness in the United States grew a dramatic 12%, to its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans, according to federal data.
The court is expected to decide the case by the end of June.
