(NewsNation) —The Supreme Court is slated to hear a case Monday that will be highly consequential for how cities can address their unsheltered homeless populations, which have grown quickly in recent years.
In the case Grants Pass v. Johnson, the nation’s highest court will hear arguments on whether the mountain city of Grant Pass, Oregon, can issue both criminal and civil penalties on people who sleep and essentially live in a public park.
About 600 homeless residents stay in tents and makeshift tarp shelters in the city park, saying they have nowhere else to go. But the city says civil and criminal punishments are necessary for enforcing laws banning homeless individuals from public spaces.
The decision is poised to have wide-reaching implications for the nation’s homeless population.
Homelessness hit a record high last year due in part to a “sharp rise” in the number of people who became homeless for the first time, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
More than 650,000 people experienced homelessness on a single night in January 2023, an astonishing 12 percent jump from 2022, the report found.
That’s the highest number since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007 to count the homeless population. After the end of pandemic aid programs, such as the eviction moratorium, thousands lost their homes.
“We’re in this situation not because we want to be. We’re in this situation because we don’t have a choice right now,” Helen Cruz, who lived on the streets of Grant Pass for several years, told NBC News.
“If they side with the city of Grants Pass, I don’t really want to think about what’s going to happen. It’s an uncertainty that nobody wants to think about.”
What is the Grants Pass case about?
The heart of this case is the city of Grants Pass, which sits in the southern part of the state and has been thrust as the poster child for the nation’s homelessness crisis.
The city has a population of nearly 40,000, and hundreds of its homeless residents camp in tents and sleep on public benches and picnic tables. The city has been unable to meet the needs of a growing homeless population taking up space in public places.
However, camping on public property was prohibited under the city’s municipal code, which meant the city could issue citations to homeless residents.
The city’s homeless population sued the city, saying that criminalization of homelessness amounted to an Eighth Amendment constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment.
They also argued that it violated the Excessive Fines Clause because Grants Pass has no low-barrier shelters.
In July 2020, the district court ruled that Grants Pass’ ordinances regulating homelessness were unconstitutional because 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, reported USA Today.
The city then appealed that decision to the 9th Circuit Court, which upheld the lower court decision.
Grants Pass then took its case to the Supreme Court, which agreed to take up the matter.
What are the arguments on both sides?
Lawyers on both sides say the Supreme Court’s decision will impact the country’s unsheltered homeless population by either protecting them from criminalization or giving local leaders more power to stop camping and sleeping in public spaces.
Attorneys representing the homeless population in Grants Pass argue the city is violating the Eighth Amendment. They say city ordinances “make it physically impossible for a homeless person who does not have access to shelter to remain in Grants Pass without facing endless fines and jail time,” reported KLCC.
These ordinances punish “homeless people for sleeping or resting anywhere on public property at any time with so much as a blanket to survive the cold, regardless of whether they have anywhere else to go,” they write in court documents.
They are also concerned that the city’s actions will set “off a banishment race with other municipalities, resulting in a spate of local punishment schemes that collectively operate as a nationwide ban on homelessness.”
Meanwhile, lawyers for Grants Pass say court rulings inhibit “governments from proactively addressing the serious social policy problems associated with the homelessness crisis.”
The city argues fines and short jail terms are not cruel and unusual punishments under the Eighth Amendment and that it’s not the court’s responsibility to determine whether a person camping in public is doing so involuntarily, whether there are shelter beds available or how to count available shelters, reported KLCC.
They argue widespread consequences will include “sweeping injunctions barring enforcement of basic laws protecting public health and safety, as well as an ever-present threat of litigation whenever a municipality tries to address the spread of encampments.”
Will the SCOTUS case affect the homelessness crisis?
The Supreme Court has not taken up many cases on how cities can address homelessness, so city leaders grappling with growing unsheltered populations across the country will be closely watching.
The case could either give cities the power to regulate homelessness or allow the unsheltered to live peacefully in public places.
But regardless of the decision, the larger issue of homelessness and the lack of resources to address the crisis will not be solved by the Supreme Court.
“Criminalization doesn’t solve homelessness,” Samantha Batko, a researcher at the Urban Institute who studies city budgets, told USA Today. “What happens is, this cycle of arrests and citations get people caught in a homelessness-jail cycle.”
Those living on the streets will likely need more resources like shelters, financial assistance and a pathway for getting off the street.