Supreme Court rules homeless camping bans are constitutional, overturning Martin v. Boise

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that laws preventing the homeless from camping on public property are not cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

The 6-3 ruling will have broad implications for local governments across the West, where the 2018 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision Martin v. Boise prevented cities from enforcing camping bans against the homeless if there were not enough available shelter beds.

Friday’s ruling came in favor of Grants Pass, Oregon, where a class action lawsuit claimed that the city’s ordinances against public camping violated the Eighth Amendment.

In the majority opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the Eighth Amendment focuses on what kind of punishment can be imposed after a criminal conviction, not whether a government can criminalize a particular behavior in the first place.

Gorsuch argued that public camping ordinances do not criminalize homelessness because such laws apply to everyone, regardless of status.

“It makes no difference whether the charged defendant is currently a person experiencing homelessness, a backpacker on vacation, or a student who abandons his dorm room to camp out in protest on the lawn of a municipal building,” Gorsuch wrote.

He further wrote that homelessness is a complicated issue, and it is not the court’s role to dictate policy solutions for the country.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in the dissenting opinion, argued that Grants Pass punished people for not having access to shelter and that punishing their status as homeless is unconstitutional.

“Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime,” Sotomayor wrote. “For some people, sleeping outside is their only option.”

Richard Seaman, a constitutional law professor at the University of Idaho, said the ruling was significant, but not groundbreaking. If the case had gone the other way, he said it would have been a huge break from precedent because it would have created a constitutional right to be housed.

“The Constitution has never been interpreted to provide affirmative benefits like housing,” Seaman said.

And if the court had ruled in favor of the homeless plaintiffs, Seaman said it would have raised tough questions beyond sleeping in public. For example, it could have protected the status of being addicted, which could be used to excuse more severe crimes.

The decision gives clarity to local governments to move forward with their policies without fear of violating the Constitution, Seaman said.

The Grants Pass City Council will discuss options after its legal counsel has a chance to brief them, the city said in a statement.

“We’re thankful that the Court’s ruling will help guide our next steps regarding unhoused members of our community,” the Grants Pass statement said, adding that the city is “committed to assisting residents struggling to find stable housing.”

Similarly in Spokane, spokeswoman Erin Hut said the city’s legal counsel and administration are reviewing the 74-page decision to determine what it means for enforcement of local laws.

Mayor Lisa Brown said that the city will continue to respond to unlawful camping and code violations through police enforcement, Spokane Fire’s behavioral health response and the city’s Homeless Outreach Team.

“I remain committed to community safety and the well-being of all our citizens, which requires a more robust approach than enforcement alone,” Brown said in a statement. “We are committed to getting to the root causes of the unhoused crisis by making investments in mental and behavioral health care, expanding access to substance use treatment, and creating more transitional and permanent housing.”

Under former Mayor Nadine Woodward last fall, Spokane joined 20 other cities in a brief supporting Grants Pass in the case.

Spokane voters last year overwhelmingly approved Proposition 1 that made it illegal to camp within 1,000 feet of a park, day care or school.

The new law has not been enforced, however, as it faces a challenge arguing the initiative is invalid on technical grounds unrelated to Martin v. Boise. The state Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case Sept. 17.

But even before Proposition 1 was approved by voters, the city outlawed camping on any public property, though this law was generally not enforced unless shelter beds were available.

The city has otherwise issued citations under narrower bans against camping on public property, including camping within 50 feet of a railroad viaduct, along the banks of the Spokane River and nearby existing homeless shelters.

Brain Hansen, the Spokane attorney who submitted the ballot initiative last year, said he was pleased the U.S. Supreme Court came to a reasonable interpretation and that it gives more authority back to the city. Now it is up to Brown to decide whether or how to enforce it, he said.

Hansen called Proposition 1 a reasonable response to the city’s homelessness crisis and that it is less extreme than Grants Pass, which has a total ban on camping. He said the initiative was meant to protect children, not as retribution against the homeless.

John Estey, president of the Clean and Safe Spokane political action committee that supported Proposition 1, also applauded the court’s decision as a victory, while criticizing Brown for not mentioning Proposition 1 in her statement.

“Today’s decision means the only thing standing between the will of the voters is the mayor,” Estey said.

Julie Garcia, founder of Jewels Helping Hands, the organization challenging Proposition 1, said she agrees no one should be sleeping near schools, but Proposition 1 leaves very little space for people to exist and will lead to more concentrated encampments.

“Our official stance has always been if we are going to tell people where they can’t be, we need to tell them where they can,” Garcia said.

There simply are not enough beds in the community and there won’t be enough any time in the near future. Meanwhile, Garcia said, “there has to be some kind of compromise without criminalizing their very existence.”

Jeffry Finer, an attorney who previously represented Jewels Helping Hands on Camp Hope, an encampment that had more than 600 people before it was dispersed last summer, called the Supreme Court ruling “brutal” and said it doesn’t address the underlying issues.

“There is still going to be a large population that cannot find housing that is effectively without any place to stay or sleep,” Finer said.

The main effect will be shuffling people from one end of town to another, he said. If cities are not required to house their homeless, “then we will have a permanent underclass,” he said.

Yet Finer is optimistic about Spokane, where he doesn’t anticipate the decision bringing immediate changes.

“We have a competent mayor and a well-trained police department that understand the issue,” Finer said.