The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear an appeal in a case that challenges a ruling that enforcement of local laws against camping on public property violates the constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments.
The city of Grants Pass, Oregon asked the high court to take the case after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco found that the Grants Pass prohibition of public camping against those with no other shelter options was unconstitutional.
The Grants Pass case has been closely watched locally for its potential impact on pending litigation against the city of San Francisco by the Coalition on Homelessness, a local advocacy group for homeless people.
In December 2022, a federal judge enjoined San Francisco from clearing tent encampments without providing an offer of shelter to the displaced residents. The Grants Pass decision was one of the cases that the court relied on as support for the injunction.
The injunction against San Francisco remains in effect despite multiple attempts by the city and its lawyers to overturn it or narrow its scope. As recently as Thursday, the 9th Circuit decided to leave the injunction in place while the lower court considers additional challenges by the city.
San Francisco filed a “friend of the court” brief in the Supreme Court urging the court to review the Grants Pass case.
City Attorney David Chiu said Friday that San Francisco “has struggled with the significant, unresolved legal questions” left by the Grants Pass and earlier decisions. “Given the impossible situation our city finds itself in, it is appropriate for the Supreme Court to step in and resolve these questions.”
The Grants Pass case was hotly debated in the 9th Circuit. After a divided panel of three judges affirmed the prohibition of enforcement against public camping, Grants Pass requested a rehearing by the full court.
The court then denied rehearing, but only by the slimmest of margins — the vote was 14 to 13 among the court’s active judges — and over the objections of 17 active and senior judges who argued that the panel decision was incorrect and should have been overturned.
The Coalition on Homelessness issued a statement Friday that said the “Grants Pass case questions whether governments can jail people simply for the crime of being too poor to afford housing.'”
The Coalition went on to say the “decision could upend decades of established Supreme Court precedent, and reopen a definition of cruel and unusual punishment that protects Americans, housed and unhoused, from unconstitutional treatment in the criminal legal system.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom issued his own statement saying, “California has invested billions to address homelessness, but rulings from the bench have tied the hands of state and local governments to address this issue.
“The Supreme Court can now correct course and end the costly delays from lawsuits that have plagued our efforts to clear encampments and deliver services to those in need,” Newsom said.
The Supreme Court’s review of the case is discretionary and required at least four votes among the nine Justices to accept the request to consider the matter.
Briefing and argument in the case are expected to take months.
28 comments
Taxpayers should insist that they do
There is a tent next to City of Concord offices with at least two occupants.
Newsom has supposedly spent billions on the homeless issue and California still has the most homeless in the nation. And it’s not a housing shortage issue. It is a too many people coming here issue. The state should have closely audited where all those billions of taxpayer dollars were actually being spent on or given to. The state doesn’t seem to want to report those facts…
Two people? Wouldn’t that be closer to a “tent village”?
Let’s see. If the homeless were illlegals they would all have a nice place to stay, free medical, free food, etc. bit unfortunately the homeless are US citizens, we’ll always have a homeless problem.
… and taxpayers pay for it all…and it’s because we allow politicians to enact laws to permit it…. if people don’t do their research – they shouldn’t vote… we just get the revolving door of too lenient incumbents and progressives
By allowing citizens to live or urban camp wherever they want, is infringement on my rights. Putting my health and safety at risk. NO PLUMBING and OPEN FIRES are just a few dangers that effect me.
Scrape these fools up and put them in jail until they decide to not plague our city with their useless selfishness. Under every overpass and in every nook of Concord drug addicts and scum are crawling around urinating and pooping and trashing everything. What the hell is the city council thinking?
It’s the Courts and not necessarily the Concord City Council, but I wouldn’t let the Concord City Council totally off of the hook. The Courts have decriminalized homelessness and addiction, the homeless can’t necessarily be removed and/or punished in the absence of housing alternatives, if city or county housing alternatives exist and have available room and the homeless refuse those available housing alternatives, then they can be removed and punished.
First they have to get CLEAN, and I mean off drugs. Housing will come once they can participate in society again. The majority chose to live this way. My son was one of them for 6 years sadly and it wasn’t until he got arrested for the 5/6/7/8/9, I don’t know time and went to prison, he finally got clean. Thankfully he turned his life around and has 7 years sober. He is the first to say: CRIMINALIZE this behavior and get them off the streets or nothing will ever change. You can’t house them and expect them to stay sober. It doesn’t work that way.
There are plenty of cities that do not have this problem. There are ways to make it happen even under the current legal situation. I can’t understand why the city council doesn’t feel accountability to the people who literally pay for everything.
With the current makeup of the Supreme Court, there is at least the potential of an honest evaluation, and a hopeful ruling based upon commonsense. Whatever else his legacy involves, Donald Trump’s defeat of Hilary Clinton is a gift to all Americans…whether they have the maturity to acknowledge it or not.
So WHERE is the Health Dept now???
This is not only a health issue, but a mental health issue.
Where are they disposing of all of their waste?
My peace of mind is being impacted by A.) The taxation without representation and B.) The dangers these people present.
Deal with the issue…..Our neighborhoods and commercial areas, and open space areas are not Zoned for this kind of lifestyle.
Hmmm, This time it’s called “Anti Camping” . . . . . .
In 1940s they called it “Relocation” an only criteria then was ones facial features.
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Manzanar photo galleries tell the story
https://www.nps.gov/manz/learn/photosmultimedia/photogallery.htm
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Simple minded DEMs figure out of sight, . . . . . . problem solved
CHum
Now they can put their tent on the sidewalk in front of my house???
I think I would HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT!!!
Grabbin Newsom needs an audit and investigation as to where all the money HE SAYS goes towards the homeless…really goes.
If the SCOUS rules that it is in violation of the Eighth Amendment to prohibit camping on public property, does this mean that state and federal parks can not charge a fee for camping? Or, does it mean the city can charge the homeless a fee?
If they only kept things tight, neat and clean. Why is it they just thrash everything and leave monstrous sized haz mat situations everywhere they setup? Rhetorical question, you don’t know either.
When the large homeless encampment sprung up on San Miguel Road under the BART tracks I expressed my concern to the City of Concord. The response was, “They are allowed to stay there.” Yet where are they now? They have been removed and the area has been fenced off.
Many people are being displaced from housing and are in need of assistance due to the current state of our country’s economic catastrophe, among other things. I feel for them and understand having to do what you have to do to survive. I saw a young man on Lime Ridge Trail securing his belongings and strapping them down onto a cart that he pulled behind him as he ventured forth. People are barely making it.
Not all homeless are druggies or crazies. Times are hard. Be grateful for what you have. Hopefully there will be some sort of relief for those who need and deserve it, and a way to discern who those people may be.
“A self-proclaimed’ old-school junkie’ who moved from Texas to San Francisco because ‘it’s f*****g easy’ to be homeless there claims he’s being paid by the city government to live on the streets, getting $620 in cash per month and hundreds of food stamps while he sells Narcan and enjoys Amazon Prime and Netflix on his phone.
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‘This right now is literally by choice, literally by choice. If we’re going to be realistic, they pay you to be homeless here,’ James, a homeless man with face tattoos who has been living in San Francisco since June…” …
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“…it only took one phone call to receive government assistance, including hundreds in cash and food stamps worth approximately $100, and notes that the ‘free money’ is motivation to remain homeless.”
dailymail https://tinyurl.com/bdhc5put
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Historically those who found themselves down and out were helped by neighbors, religious organizations, churches and civic organizations.
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“Government does not solve problems;
it subsidizes them”
–Ronald Reagan
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IF Supreme Court allows Anti-Camping Laws will liberal politicians, embarrassed by repeated failures of their best ideas, begin arresting those with “no other shelter options” ? ? ?
An when problem STILL persists,
will liberal shallow thinking politicians begin requisitioning box cars . . . ? ? ?
Only in a liberal utopia 🤦♀️…. Paying junkies who live on the streets. Unreal! I honestly hope in my lifetime I see this end, and it is once again criminalized. I’m not saying so much as “drug usage” as people should be free to make their own choices, but if it effects others, and one becomes a nuisance and breaks laws, then they get arrested.
Would you be surprised to find the Coalition on Homelessness is in part funded by the billions of our money Newsom has ”invested” for reasons no rational person can deduce? I wouldn’t.
The 9th circuit court of appeals in San Francisco- where you see galvanized watering troughs all over the sidewalks so that homeless people don’t camp.
These bums are like parasites. Everything you do for them is a waste. Feed them and more show up. We need more jails and institutions. That is cheaper than trying to rehabilitate them.
The solution is a US economy that works for everybody not just the greedy rich. Like I’ve said over and over the standard of living in the US is about 3 times what it should be and increasingly out of reach more many. Remember we now have $15 burritos and burgers that cost only $5 or less a few short years ago. Minimum wage increases are for destroying the economy not helping low wage workers. Hence they let lots of illegals across the border to illegally staff businesses that can’t afford the minimum wage. Get it yet?
Say what you will about the former Soviet Union but if a person was of a proper age and able to work, but didn’t, they were considered a parasite of the state and “re-educated.”
with the amount of taxes citizens pay in CA….we should never ever see roadside garbage, dirty freeways, or homeless camps on on any of kind public land
Newsom is only interested in enforcing anti-camping laws in the presence of Chinese Dignitaries.
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