Supreme Court Will Rule On How States And Cities Can Respond To Homelessness Crisis

Lower court decisions granting homeless people protections against cruel and unusual punishment could be reversed in a case brought by Grants Pass, Oregon.

In 2013, the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, population about 40,000, sought to do something about the growing presence of homeless encampments on public property. The City Council decided to heavily enforce laws prohibiting homeless people from sleeping anywhere at any time by issuing significant, escalatory fines. The intent was to drive the homeless population out of town.

“The point is to make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road,” City Council member Lily Morgan said at a council meeting on homelessness in 2013.

Advocates for homeless people sued on behalf of three individuals ― Gloria Johnson, John Logan and Debra Blake, who has since died ― in 2018, challenging the city’s enforcement of these laws as unconstitutionally punitive.

Their case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on April 22, after Grants Pass appealed a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that blocked the city’s enforcement of some of its laws targeting the homeless population.

At the heart of the case is a 2018 decision by the 9th Circuit in a separate case, Martin v. Boise, in which the Idaho city’s total ban on outdoor camping and sleeping was found to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments,” and it blocked enforcement of the law. Since Martin, a steady stream of 9th Circuit decisions have blocked similar policies in West Coast municipalities aimed at limiting outdoor camping and sleeping, using different interpretations of the court’s initial decision ― including in the Grants Pass case.