The Supreme Court has given mayors the green light and a lot of power to fight homelessness, which includes the ability to jail people for sleeping outside. West Coast leaders need to decide what they are willing to do to clear the streets.
The Grants Pass v. Johnson decision from last month will have significant effects all over the country, from Northeast places that are dealing with a flood of immigrants to Sun Belt boom towns that can’t find enough affordable housing. But the effect is most noticeable on the West Coast, where lower court decisions had made it very hard for city officials to clear out encampments at a time when the area was at the center of a national crisis for homelessness.
When London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, praised the Supreme Court’s decision, she spoke for many angry Democratic mayors.
Breed said when people refuse help or who already have a place to stay, they will not be able to camp on the streets.
Cities on the West Coast have been frustrated for years as they try to clear camps without breaking the law.
The mayors were upset that different court decisions had made it very hard to get rid of homeless people from streets, parks, and underpasses. At the same time, voters were angry about the health and safety risks that growing camps created.
But the high court’s decision basically threw out those decisions, so towns can take down tents even when there aren’t enough shelter beds. The Supreme Court also said that arresting or ticketing people for camping in public places did not violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
Still, mayors have to deal with opposition from people who work to help the homeless and others who say that harsher measures will only make things worse for the homeless and move them from city to city.
Advocates and legal experts say that cities will likely take more aggressive action to remove encampments, including throwing away more homeless people’s belongings, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has given them more freedom to punish people for sleeping in public when they have no other choice.
Interestingly, a prison inmate is suing over what he calls cruel and unusual punishment. He says he is sleep-deprived because of prison rules.
