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unhoused
A Belly Laugh About the Homeless
If they can’t sleep inside because they’re homeless, and now the Supreme Court forbids them to sleep outside, then where in the world can they sleep?
Jul 28, 2024
The homeless problem in America is not funny. It’s serious and apparently growing. It helps little to call people “unhoused” instead of homeless. Under either name, they’re still on the street and need shelter.
But I got a belly laugh recently when it was announced that the reactionary U.S. Supreme Court has solemnly ruled that homeless people could not sleep outside. That struck me as funny. If they can’t sleep inside because they’re homeless, and now the Supreme Court forbids them to sleep outside, then where in the world can they sleep? People have to be somewhere, either inside or outside.
Then I realized it’s not a laughing matter after all. Because of the Supreme Court’s decision, officials in California, Oregon, and several Western states are now moving quickly to force people off the streets and into city shelters. If they don’t have a place to sleep, they have decreed, they must be rounded up like sheep and put into official sheepfolds.
Can Americans summon the compassion for their fellow citizens—for the estimated 650,000 men, women, and children in the U.S. who are currently homeless—to seek a lasting solution to this situation?
That makes a certain amount of sense, and seems to be compassionate, but it isn’t. First, there aren’t enough shelters. Then the cost to city and state budgets is sure to be high. Under this ruling, people become pawns of the civic authorities. When they resist they’re inevitably treated roughly by police, who don’t like herding people instead of fighting crime.
Now California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a possible vice presidential candidate, has announced that the California state police must become involved in rounding up the homeless. What a brilliant move—a bit like the slogan, “Whippings will continue until morale improves.”
But there’s a more sober—even ominous—dimension to this issue. We are all protected by the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution in our Bill of Rights, which forbids cruel and unusual punishment. Under the legal implications of this decision, that right has now been taken away from all the rest of us.
The MAGA-tilted U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the case filed by the town of Grants Pass, Oregon, was that homeless people—(who can’t sleep inside because they have no home) have no right to sleep outside either. The court said that forcing them into state or city-run shelters is not cruel and inhumane. What does that mean for them—or for us, if we find ourselves in that perilous condition? We just can’t sleep anywhere we choose. One of our rights has been taken away.
I have a friend who rebuked me for giving money to beggars and the “unhoused” homeless. He said, “There are plenty of government programs and service agencies dedicated to helping those people.” I inquired further and found that there is no “one size fits all” solution when it comes to the indigent. People on the street face multiple problems in getting appropriate aid. Each person has his or her own story to tell. “One size fits all” is not an appropriate answer.
What’s needed is more money to address the problems these people are facing. That includes counseling, better healthcare, adequate social security payments, improved socialization activities, opportunities for useful employment, and above all neighborly treatment. Each person is a child, brother, sister, spouse, parent, or grandparent—“somebody’s darling”—after all. For our own sake as well as theirs, let’s not allow public policy to strip them of their remaining shreds of human dignity.
Can Americans summon the compassion for their fellow citizens—for the estimated 650,000 men, women, and children in the U.S. who are currently homeless—to seek a lasting solution to this situation? Doing so is timely—and requisite for our own humanity.
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In Landmark Report, DOJ Finds Phoenix Police Violated Rights of Homeless
"This behavior is not only unlawful but conveys a lack of humanity and dignity of some of the most vulnerable members of our society," said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke.
Jun 14, 2024
"A person's constitutional rights do not diminish when they lack shelter," reads a landmark report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice, the result of a three-year investigation into the Phoenix Police Department.
The finding is nothing new to advocates for unhoused people who have spent years fighting overpolicing and police brutality against the population, but the report represents the first time the DOJ has found violations of the civil and constitutional rights of people who lack shelter.
The DOJ opened an investigation into the Phoenix Police Department (PhxPD) after complaints about excessive force by police, and pledged to do a full accounting of police violence and of discrimination against Black, Latino, and Native American residents.
Officials found that the overpolicing of Phoenix's unhoused population has become a "central pillar of PhxPD's enforcement strategy," despite the department's stated policy to "lead with services" and provide referrals to agencies that can help unhoused people with housing, healthcare, and other needs.
"Between January 2016 and March 2022, people who were homeless accounted for over one-third—37%—of all PhxPD misdemeanor arrests and citations," reads the report.
The DOJ found the PhxPD principally violated unhoused people's rights by detaining them without reasonable suspicion and by seizing their property without notice—violations of the residents' Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
Officers last year forcefully moved hundreds of people to a large homeless encampment called The Zone near Phoenix's Capitol complex, which was ultimately cleared last November following a lawsuit filed by neighboring residents.
The DOJ found the police put unhoused people in harm's way by forcing them to move to The Zone, where high rates of crime including sexual assault had been reported. The report also found the PhxPD unlawfully subjected unhoused people to citations and arrests for camping in public parks and other areas, with one man cited or arrested 20 times over three years.
"We found that unhoused people in Phoenix have suffered a pattern of unconstitutional conduct," said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights. "Additionally, the city and the police department seize and destroy the property of homeless people without providing adequate notice or fair opportunity to collect their belongings. This behavior is not only unlawful but conveys a lack of humanity and dignity of some of the most vulnerable members of our society."
Arizona state Rep. Analise Ortiz (D-24) applauded the DOJ's historic report, but noted that "the proposed state budget includes $0 for homelessness."
In addition to the police department's violations against many of Phoenix's 2,700 unhoused people, the DOJ reported on racial discrimination, with Black drivers 144% more likely than white drivers to be pulled over, and on department leaders urging officers to use projectiles often with a "use it or lose it" policy.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona said the report would bolster its ongoing litigation against the city and the PhxPD, and said it was not "not surprised" to hear that the DOJ had found widespread misconduct by the police.
"This damning report makes clear that the Phoenix Police Department suffers from an ingrained permissive culture that tolerates and even encourages widespread use of force, including deadly force, against some of our community's most vulnerable people," said Scott Greenwood, interim executive director of the group. "Moreover, this culture overwhelmingly directs enforcement activity against Black, Brown, Indigenous, and houseless people and harms people experiencing behavioral or emotional health crises."
"The people of Phoenix deserve genuine community safety," Greenwood added. "Today's report reflects a failure of leadership by prior chiefs over the last decade and a city government that has neglected or refused to hold them accountable. The most important thing that the mayor and city council can do now is to embrace this process as a vehicle for transformative change rather than stick their heads in the sand. Policing can and must be both effective and constitutional. Policing in Phoenix is neither."
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Liberal Justices Grill Attorney in Supreme Court Case on Criminalizing Homelessness
"Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves not sleeping?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor of unhoused people who have been barred from sleeping outside in Grants Pass, Oregon.
Apr 22, 2024
As housing rights advocates and people who have been unhoused themselves rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court Monday to demand an end to the criminalization of homelessness, the court's three liberal justices demanded to know how the city of Grants Pass, Oregon can penalize residents who take part in an act necessary for human survival—sleeping—just because they are forced to do so outside.
After an attorney representing Grants Pass, Thomas Evangelis, described sleeping in public as a form of "conduct," Justice Elena Kagan disputed the claim and reminded Evangelis that he was presenting a legal argument in favor of policing "a biological necessity."
"Presumably you would not think that it's okay to criminalize breathing in public," said Kagan, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. "And for a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public."
Evangelis is representing the city in Grants Pass v. Johnson, a case stemming from a 2018 lawsuit filed by an unhoused woman, Debra Blake, who accused officials of "trying to run homeless people out of town."
"On any given day or night, hundreds of individuals in Grants Pass, Oregon, are forced to live outside due to the lack of emergency shelter and affordable housing in their community," the original lawsuit stated.
The city has passed ordinances banning people from sleeping or camping on publicly owned property, with violators subject to fines of hundreds of dollars.
A lower court ruled that the city's bans were in violation of the Eighth Amendment, which bans excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishment, "when there was no other place in the city for [unhoused persons] to go."
The city's only homeless shelter, Gospel Rescue Mission, has 138 beds, and the plaintiffs have said there is frequently no room for many of the hundreds of unhoused people in Grants Pass.
On Monday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor appeared inclined to agree with the plaintiff in the original lawsuit who claimed Grants Pass ultimately wanted unhoused people to leave the city. She pointed to comments city officials have made about their aim "to remove every homeless person and give them no public space."
"Wasn't Grant Pass's first-attempt policy choice to put people, homeless people, on buses so they would leave the city?" she asked Deputy United States Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler. "Police officers would buy them a bus ticket, send them out of the city. But that didn't work because people came back because it had been their home... So then they passed this law, and didn't the City Council president say, 'Our intent is to make it so uncomfortable here that they'll move down the road,' meaning out of town, correct?"
Kneedler acknowledged that the statement was made at a City Council meeting.
"Not only is [sleeping] something that everybody engages in, but it's something that everybody has to engage in to be alive," Kneedler said in response to a question from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. "So if you can't sleep, you can't live, and therefore by prohibiting sleeping, the city is basically saying you cannot live in Grants Pass."
The city argued in its case that prohibiting local officials from regulating and banning homeless encampments in public places would cause more people to sleep outdoors—an argument U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), speaking at the rally outside the court, said exposed "how absurd our country's approach to the unhoused crisis is."
"Instead of enacting real solutions to the unhoused crisis, Grants Pass has taken this case all the way to the Supreme Court and is calling for the court to overturn a landmark decision from 1962 that says the government cannot punish people based on status. So we're here today to demand the Supreme Court support humanity, adhere to constitutional precedent, and protect the rights of our unhoused neighbors," said Bush, who has spoken about previously being unhoused herself and sponsored related legislation.
"A person should never be punished for not being able to afford rent or a home," Bush added. "A person should never be punished for sleeping outside or in a car when they have no other place to go. A person should never be punished for simply existing. We need universal housing, universal housing vouchers, and a permanent federal rental assistance program—these are all tangible steps that would actually solve this crisis."
The case arrived at the high court four months after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released annual data showing a 12% increase in homelessness last year from 2022, largely due to a sharp rise in the number of people who were without housing in 2023 for the first time in their lives. Experts often argue the federal figures are an undercount.
On Monday, the Eviction Lab at Princeton University released new data showing that in 25 of the 32 cities it analyzed, an increase in eviction filings was seen between 2022-23.
"The country lacks millions of units of affordable rental housing, and in those units that are available, a record number of tenants are paying well beyond their means," reported the Eviction Lab. "High interest rates prevent younger, middle-class renters from buying homes, which in turn increases demand in the rental sector."
Considering the dynamics contributing to a growing unhoused population, Sotomayor asked of people facing homelessness in Grants Pass: "Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves not sleeping?"
The conservatives on the Supreme Court, who make up the majority, signaled a willingness to rule in favor of the city, with Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledging that the case is centered on "a policy problem because the solution, of course, is to build shelter to provide shelter for those who are otherwise harmless," but noting that "municipalities have competing priorities."
The answer to the questions being asked at the Supreme Court Monday "is not complicated," said Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.). "Unhoused people need housing. Housing is the answer. Housing NOT Handcuffs."
Ramirez repeated a phrase that was seen on many signs held by rally attendees, who included the national grassroots economic justice group VOCAL and organizers with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the National Homelessness Law Center (NHLC).
"What the Supreme Court decides in this case will say a lot about what kind of country we are and what country we want to be," said Efrén Olivares, director of strategic litigation and advocacy at the SPLC. "We demand a future without policies like the one before the court and a government that instead works to ensure that the right to affordable housing is guaranteed for all."
A ruling in the case is expected in June.
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