(AP) — The Supreme Court heard arguments Monday on whether banning homeless people from sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
The case 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 8th Amendment by punishing people for something they don't have control over.
“Like cities nationwide, Grants Pass relies on camping laws to protect its public spaces,” Theane Evangelis, attorney for the city of Grants Pass, said to the court. “These generally applicable laws prohibit specific conduct and are essential to public health and safety.”
The case is considered the most significant to come before the high court in decades on homelessness, which is reaching record levels in the U.S.
Mike Jones of Cleveland, who serves as the justice housing strategist for the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, still remembers 20 years ago how difficult it was to find a place to sleep after spending time in prison.
Crime and homelessness run hand in hand, he said.
"Even now today, when I fill out an application for a rental, my background still comes up," he said. "It’s a reason why it’s always a struggle for me to find housing."
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.
"To criminalize somebody being found on a tent in a public property, that could be huge," Jones said. "It’s already hard. They're already homeless for a reason: either they got a felony, mental health issues, they're a veteran and some people just don’t want to stay in a shelter because it’s not always safe."
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 Democratic and Republican officials contend that makes it difficult for them to manage encampments, which can have dangerous and unsanitary living conditions.
However, 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.
The Justice Department has also weighed in. 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.
On any given night, 11,386 Ohioans do not have a place to stay, according to the 2023 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress.
That homeless population is up almost 7% compared to a year ago.
"This past winter, we saw the shelters beyond capacity and the seasonal shelters at capacity and there was literally points where people had nowhere to go," Josiah Quarles at the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless said.
As for when the Supreme Court could issue that decision, typically, it can take anywhere from weeks to months, depending on the case.
READ MORE: Homelessness reached a record in 2023, and it could get worse
