Sleeping on public property can be a crime if you're homeless, Supreme Court says

Advocates for unhoused people warn the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in a major case on camping bans will make the homeless crisis worse, forcing more people into a cycle of jail, debt and living on the streets.

On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Grants Pass, Oregon, a small city with a large homeless population. The justices said the town can go ahead with its ban on sleeping in public with bedding, which will prohibit unhoused people from living in public parks, according to lawyers supporting Grants Pass who spoke with USA TODAY. People who violate the ban will face fines and possibly jail time.

In their 6-3 decision, justices said enforcing a camping ban is not equal to cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling overturned a lower court ruling that kept the ban from being enforced.

“This is a pretty hard blow and it’s devastating,” said Helen Cruz, 49, who gives meals to unhoused people in parks in Grants Pass and has advocated against the sleeping ban for years. She's been homeless herself for most of her adult life, she said. Recently, she has been able to live in a church where she does volunteer work.

Speaking after the ruling's release Friday, Cruz told USA TODAY the decision was the worst possible outcome the hundreds of people living outside in Grants Pass could have imagined.

“These people who have had nothing had one glimmer of hope, and now it’s been stripped from them. How far down can you beat somebody who has nothing? I don’t understand," Cruz said, speaking through tears.

National homelessness advocates also said Friday the court's ruling was a huge disappointment.

"We are incredibly disappointed and we're worried about how quickly some communities will move to enact local ordinances that are now legal under this ruling," said Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Since 2018, cities in much of the western U.S. couldn't enforce 24-hour bans on sleeping in public, a dilemma they said made it harder to clear large tent encampments. Now, some of the cities with the largest numbers of unsheltered homeless populations in the country − Los Angeles, San Diego and Seattle − are free to pass new laws to prevent people from sleeping outside.

Theane Evangelis, the lawyer who argued the case for Grants Pass, said Friday the court's ruling comes as "urgent relief" for cities struggling to control homeless encampments.

"Years from now, I hope that we will look back on today’s watershed ruling as the turning point in America’s homelessness crisis," Evangelis said in a statement.

Policy experts who supported Grants Pass in the case said the Supreme Court's decision was a victory for local governments across the country.

"The court made the right decision to not become micromanagers of local homeless policy across the entire United States of America," said Judge Glock, director of research at the Manhattan Institute, a think tank supporting individual freedom and the rule of law that submitted documents to the Supreme Court in support of Grants Pass.

In Oregon, a 2021 state law means unhoused residents in Grants Pass and throughout the state will have some protections in the face of 24-hour sleeping bans, but cities can still move forward with stricter camping rules after the Supreme Court on Friday reversed a low court decision.

Oral argumentsWhat justices said in court as they heard Grants Pass v. Johnson

Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol said she is glad the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city. She told USA TODAY she and the city council will begin reviewing the decision and state law to figure out how to move forward.

"I'm relieved that Grants Pass will be able to reclaim our city parks for recreation," Bristol said. She also said she acknowledges homelessness is a "complex issue" for which her city has "been trying to find solutions."

One solution was to launch a sanctioned campsite or open a new shelter, but both received pushback from the city.

Ruth Sears, who owns a dance studio building next to what was a planned shelter in downtown Grants Pass, said the court's ruling won't do anything to solve homelessness in her city.

“I don’t see how it’s really going to help, unless their thought is they’ll go someplace else, which is obviously not a real good answer for the homeless people," Sears, 72, said.

Legal experts on the side of homeless plaintiffs in the case worry that more cities will pass similar bans, leaving unhoused people with fewer jurisdictions where they can legally live outside.

"What if every jurisdiction passes these laws? You'll probably see them sweeping across the nation," said David Peery, a lawyer with the National Coalition for the Homeless in Florida.

The fines that will come as a result of camping and sleeping bans will only prolong people's homelessness because debt and a criminal record will make it harder for them to secure jobs and housing, Oliva said.

“We know they can’t pay those tickets," Oliva added.

Homeless in Grants PassHow one woman's homeless story fits into the national debate

Grants Pass had already been issuing fines and enforcing a law that prohibits people from setting up tents in the same spot indefinitely, and now officials have more leeway to crack down on people living outside.

This decision by the Supreme Court will only make the homeless crisis worse, said Eric Tars, the Legal Director for the National Homeless Law Center.

"Harmful approaches like criminalization are a crutch to avoid dealing with their affordable housing problems," Tars said.

Similarly, Oliva called camping bans a "fake solution" to the crisis playing out in homeless encampments nationwide.

Advocates say cities should focus on affordable housing

On Friday, Oliva said local mayors and city councils across the country must remember that they serve the needs of unhoused communities, as well as housed constituents who want the homelessness crisis solved.

Local elected officials should build more shelters and connect unhoused people with more services through outreach, Oliva said, rather than crack down harder on people in encampments by passing new sleeping bans.

"Housing-focused shelter and outreach will keep people safe and healthy as possible while we are building more affordable housing for people − that's the path forward," Oliva said.

Tars called the court's ruling "heartbreaking."

"But we are not done fighting," he told USA TODAY.

What did the court debate during oral arguments?

During oral arguments on April 22, the justices wrestled with the question of whether being homeless is an unavoidable status, or if sleeping outside is conduct that comes as a result of not having a home.

The justices said it would make more sense for local and state governments to make choices about homelessness policy, rather than having the country's highest court wade into the debate.

In April, some of the justices also wondered if the court could narrowly decide the issue by saying that the Grants Pass sleeping ban isn't allowed under a new Oregon law prohibiting 24-hour bans.

What was the Grants Pass case about?

Grants Pass v. Johnson pitted the homeless population of Grants Pass, Oregon, a town of about 40,000 against local officials, who said they wanted to regain control of public parks, where about 600 unhoused people live in tents, under tarps and sleep on tables and benches.

Most of the unhoused people living outside in Grants Pass first became homeless as the price of homes skyrocketed over the last couple decades, according to the public defender who first took the case, Ed Johnson, who is not related to the named plaintiff in the case, Gloria Johnson.

The city wanted to permanently clear people out of parks, but said it couldn't because a 2022 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision ruled homeless people in places without enough shelter beds have an Eighth Amendment right not to face punishment for living outside and protecting themselves from the elements.

There is no city-run shelter, only a church-run program for homeless people that includes a shelter that requires residents to work. Transitional housing, in the form of a tiny home village, opened in 2021, but there are only 17 slots. Due to a lack of affordable housing in Grants Pass, turnover at the facility is low, service providers said.

The mayor of Grants Pass and some city council members worked hard to try to launch a sanctioned campsite and open a new shelter, but multiple plans received too much pushback from the community and went sideways. As of this spring, the town had no more funds to try to create the shelter space needed for its unhoused population, Bristol previously told USA TODAY.

"We need to help establish a place where people can legally sleep, and it's been a real uphill battle with all kinds of different challenges," Bristol said in April.

To solve the problem of homeless encampments in public parks, lawyers for Grants Pass asked the Supreme Court in April to overturn the Ninth Circuit decision that protected unhoused people from facing punishment for sleeping outside.

"The Ninth Circuit ties cities' hands by constitutionalizing the policy debate over how to address growing encampments," Evangelis said in April, arguing before the Supreme Court for Grants Pass.

Contributing: Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY