The Supreme Court decided Friday that cities can impose bans on homeless people sleeping outdoors, even in areas of the West Coast where shelter space is lacking.
The case is the most important to come before the high court on the issue in decades and comes at a time when a growing number of people in the United States lack a permanent place to live.
In a 6-3 decision that followed ideological lines, the high court overturned a ruling by a San Francisco-based appeals court that found bans on sleeping outdoors constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
The majority found that the Eighth Amendment ban does not extend to prohibitions on sleeping outdoors.
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that cities can enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outdoors, even in areas of the West Coast where shelter space is lacking. Residents of a homeless encampment in Seattle in March
“Homelessness is a complex problem. Its causes are multiple, and so may be the public policy responses necessary to address it,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority.
‘A handful of federal judges cannot even match the collective wisdom that the American people possess in deciding “how best to handle” a pressing social issue like homelessness.’
He suggested that people who have no choice but to sleep outdoors could claim that as a “necessity defense” if they receive a fine or some other punishment for violating a camping ban.
A bipartisan group of leaders had argued that the ruling against the bans made it harder to manage open-air encampments that have encroached on sidewalks and other public spaces in nine Western states, including California, home to a third of the nation’s homeless population.
“Cities across the West report that the Ninth Circuit’s inadvertent test has created intolerable uncertainty for them,” Gorsuch wrote.
People line up in temporary tents to participate in a free Thanksgiving meal provided by Union Rescue Mission as Los Angeles’ Skid Row
On the other hand, homeless advocates said allowing cities to punish people who need a place to sleep would criminalize homelessness and ultimately worsen the crisis. Cities had been allowed to regulate camping, but they could not prohibit people from sleeping outdoors.
“Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, reading from the bench a dissenting opinion joined by her liberal colleagues.
“Punishing people for their status is ‘cruel and unusual’ under the Eighth Amendment,” he wrote in the dissent. “It is quite possible, even likely, that these and similar ordinances will face more days in court.”
The case came from the rural Oregon town of Grants Pass, which appealed a ruling that struck down local ordinances that fined people $295 for sleeping outdoors after tents began crowding public parks.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over the nine Western states, has held since 2018 that such bans violate the Eighth Amendment in areas where there are not enough shelter beds.
Friday’s ruling comes after the number of homeless people in the United States grew a dramatic 12 percent last year to its highest level on record, as rising rents and a decline in assistance due to the coronavirus pandemic combined to put housing out of reach for more people.
More than 650,000 people are estimated to be homeless, the most since the country began using an annual point-in-time survey in 2007. Nearly half of them sleep outdoors. Older adults, LGBTQ+ people and people of color are disproportionately affected, advocates said. In Oregon, a lack of mental health and addiction resources has also helped fuel the crisis.