SCOTUS 6-3 for Grants Pass

The United States does not recognize the ticketing of homeless people with nowhere to go as cruel and unusual punishment. The opinion suggested the Eighth Amendment was “a poor foundation on which to rest the kind of decree the plaintiffs seek in this case and the Ninth Circuit has endorsed since Martin.”

“The Constitution’s Eighth Amendment serves many important functions, but it does not authorize federal judges to wrest those rights and responsibilities from the American people and in their place dictate this Nation’s homelessness policy.”

Gorsuch delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Cavanaugh, and Barrett joined. Thomas filed a concurring opinion. Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, in which Kagan and Jackson joined.

Read the opinions.

For BareFoot Defenders, Steven Kimes wrote: “The law, in its majestic nobility, has determined that sleeping, disposing of trash, properly disposing of feces, and having a mental state able to maintain a job is required by all, even though cities are more than ever making it more and more illegal to do these actions that benefit the whole community.

“When we fail to grant our citizens a place to sleep without punishment, we create an even worse mental health crisis that makes the whole city feel unsafe. When we lock public bathrooms, we see more feces in public. When we do not provide adequate public disposal, then our whole city looks like a dump. Forcing camps to move from public land by ticketing or arresting doesn’t make poverty disappear, it makes it move to business and residential areas. Poverty must be solved, not criminalized or else we all reap the consequences.”

Justin Filip, Green Party candidate for Oregon’s Congressional District 4, wrote: “I am deeply disappointed in the recent Supreme Court decision in the case of City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. Criminalizing homelessness and banning people who are unhoused does nothing to address the root causes of homelessness. I agree with Justice Sotomayor, who in her dissent wrote that punishing people for being homeless is, ‘unconscionable and unconstitutional.’

“As Greens, we believe housing is a human right. Jill Stein and I share the same platform on housing and that includes a national “Housing First” approach, and a Universal Tenant’s Bill of Rights. As a member of Congress, I intend to put forward these ideas and to fight for the rights of all our neighbors – housed and unhoused alike. Val Hoyle, who currently represents the 4th Congressional District, recently released her 15 projects for the next fiscal year and none of them deal directly with the issue of housing the unhoused. The housing crisis right now is a societal failure that must be addressed.

“I join the call from groups like Barefoot Defenders for the construction of 2,500 no-income permanent housing units locally. Nationally, we need to build at least 15 million green, publicly owned homes over the next 10 years. And we must do more than be reactive. We must proactively address the root causes of homelessness by investing in people. By doing so we will not only create safer, healthier communities, but we will also save money.”