The US Supreme Court is weighing the option to ban homeless people sleeping outside in the United States. This is coming after the SC heard arguments Monday on whether cities can ban homeless people from sleeping outside.
The US is grappling with increasing rates of Americans living on the streets and a lack of shelter beds.
The SC will be considering the case after laws in the city of Grants Pass, in the western State of Oregon banned sleeping outside.
The Oregon court had banned camping or using any kind of bedding on public property as tents, blankets and cardboard filled its public parks.
Recall that homeless advocates have argued that banning people from camping when there is nowhere else to sleep amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment”. Sleeping outside was prohibited by the US Constitution’s Eighth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit Court agreed in a 2022 ruling, which is now being appealed to the country’s high court.
According to AFP, the ruling from the nine justices will carry high stakes. It stated that the US has a record 653,100 people homeless across the country according to a 2023 count. This is even as cities struggle to manage poverty, mental health issues, addiction and housing shortages.
“Cities across the country use camping bans to sweep homeless people out of parks and other public property.
“The cruel and unusual punishments clause governs which punishments are permitted. Not what conduct can be prohibited,” Grants Pass’s lawyer Theane Evangelis said in oral arguments.
“This court should reverse and end the Ninth Circuit’s failed experiment. Which has fueled the spread of encampments, while harming those it purports to protect.”
Grants Pass, has a population of 40,000 and does not have a municipal homeless shelter. It instead relies on private charities.
However, lawyers challenging the law, have argued to the conservative-majority Supreme Court that Grants Pass sought to “force its homeless residents into other jurisdictions” via the camping ban.
“The plan was to inflict fines and jail time on the City’s homeless residents until they were ‘uncomfortable enough’ that they left Grants Pass,” they wrote in written arguments.
The ordinances “nominally prohibit camping but in reality make it unlawful for homeless people to sleep. Or rest anywhere on public property at any time with so much as a blanket to survive the cold. Even if they have no access to shelter,” the lawyers argued.
Asked by Chief Justice John Roberts what the city would do if its appeal failed at the Supreme Court, Evangelis said its “hands will be tied.”
“It will be forced to surrender its public spaces,” Evangelis added.
“In addition to poverty, drug addiction and a lack of shelter beds propelling homelessness, economists argue the country’s market-rate housing stock is woefully behind target. Leaving the United States short of millions of homes needed to meet demand and increasing prices for existing housing.
source: AFP
