The Daily - The Supreme Court Takes Up Homelessness

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Debates over homeless encampments in the United States have intensified as their number has surged. To tackle the problem, some cities have enforced bans on public camping.As the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments about whether such actions are legal, Abbie VanSickle, who covers the court for The Times, discusses the case and its far-reaching implications.Guest: Abbie VanSickle, a Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: A ruling in the case could help determine how states, particularly those in the West, grapple with a rising homelessness crisis.In a rare alliance, Democrats and Republicans are seeking legal power to clear homeless camps.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Katrin Benhold. This is The Daily. This morning we're taking a much closer look at homelessness in the United States as it reaches a level not seen in the modern era. As the number of homeless people has surged in the U.S. More than 653,000, a 12% population increase since last year. The debate over homeless encampments across the country has intensified. It is not humane to let people live on our streets in tents, use drugs. We are not standing for it anymore. People have had it. They're fed up. I'm fed up.

People want to see these tents and encampments removed in a compassionate, thoughtful way. And we agree. With public officials saying they need more tools to address the crisis. We move from block to block and every block they say, can't be here, can't be here, can't be here. I don't know where we're supposed to go, you know. And homeless people and their advocates saying those tools are intended to unfairly punish them. They come and they sweep and they take everything from me.

I can't get out of the hole I'm in because they sweep and they take everything from me. I can't get out of the hole I'm in because they keep putting me back in square one. That debate is now reaching the Supreme Court, which is about to hear arguments in the most significant case on homelessness in decades, about whether cities can make it illegal to be homeless. My colleague Abby van Zickel on the backstory of that case and its far-reaching implications for cities across the U.S. It's Friday, April 19th. So, Abby, you've been reporting on this case that has been making waves, Grants Pass v. Johnson, which the Supreme Court is taking up next week.

What's this case about? So this case is about a small town in Oregon where three homeless people sued the city after they received tickets for sleeping and camping outside. And this case is the latest case that shows this growing tension, especially in states in the West, between people who are homeless and cities who are trying to figure out what to do about this. These cities have seen a sharp increase in homeless encampments in public spaces, especially with people on sidewalks and in parks. And they've raised questions about public drug use and other safety issues in these spaces. And so the question before the justices is really how far a city can go to police homelessness. Can city officials and police use local laws to ban people from laying down outside and sleeping in a public space? Can a city essentially make it illegal to be homeless? homeless. So three homeless people sued the city of Grants Pass saying it's not illegal to be homeless and therefore it's not illegal to sleep in a public space. Yes, that's right. And they

weren't the first people to make this argument. The issue actually started years ago with a case about 500 miles to the east in Boise, Idaho. And in that case, which is called Martin v. Boise, this man, Robert Martin, who is homeless in Boise, he was charged with a misdemeanor for sleeping in some bushes. And the city of Boise had laws on the books to prohibit public camping. And Robert Martin and a group of other people who are homeless in the city, they sued the city. And they claimed that the city's laws violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. And what makes it cruel and unusual? So their argument was that the city did not have enough sufficient shelter beds for everyone who was homeless in the city. And so they were forced to sleep outside.

They said, you know, we have no place to go and that an essential human need is to sleep. And we want to be able to lay down on the sidewalk or in an alley or someplace to rest. And that their local laws were a violation of Robert Martin and the other's constitutional rights. That the city is violating the Eighth Amendment by criminalizing the human need to sleep. And the courts who heard the case agreed with that argument. The courts ruled that the city had violated the Constitution and that the city could not punish people for being involuntarily homeless. And what that meant, the court laid out, is that someone is involuntarily homeless

if a city does not have enough adequate shelter beds for the number of people who are homeless in the city. It does seem like a very important distinction. They're saying, basically, if you have nowhere else to go, you can't be punished for sleeping on the street. Right. That's what the court was saying in the Martin v. Boise case. And the city of Boise then appealed the case. They asked the Supreme Court to step in and take it on. But the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. So since then, the Martin v. Boise case controls all over the western parts of the U.S. in what's called the Ninth Circuit, which includes Oregon, where the Grants Pass case originated. Okay, so tell us about Grants Pass, this city at the center of the case and now in front of the Supreme Court. What's the story there?

and now in front of the Supreme Court. What's the story there? Grants Pass is a town in rural southwestern Oregon. It's a town of about 38,000 people. It's a former timber town that now really relies a lot on tourists to go rafting through the river and go wine tasting in the countryside. And it's a pretty conservative town. When I did interviews, people talked about it having a very strong libertarian streak. And when I talked to people in the town, people said when they were growing up there,

it was very rare to see someone who was homeless. It just was not an issue that was talked a lot about in the community. But it did become a big issue about 10 years ago. People in the community started to get worried about what they saw as an increase in the number of homeless people that they were noticing around town. And it's unclear whether the problem was growing or whether local officials and residents were worried that it might, whether they were fearing that it might. But in any case, in 2013, the city council decided to start stepping up enforcement of local ordinances that did things like outlaw camping in public parks or sleeping outside. This series of overlapping local laws that would make it impossible for

people to sleep in public spaces in Grants Pass. And at one meeting, one of the former city council members, she said, the point is to make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road. So it sounds like, at least in Grants Pass, that this is not really about reducing homelessness. It's about reducing the number of visible homeless people in the town. It's about reducing the number of visible homeless people in the town. Well, I would say that city officials and many local residents would say that the homeless encampments are actually creating real concerns about public safety, that it's creating all kinds of issues for everyone else who lives in Grants Pass. And there are drug issues and mental health issues and that this is actually bringing a lot of chaos to the city. Okay, so in order to deal with these concerns,

you said that they decided to start enforcing these local measures. What does that actually look like on the ground? So police started handing out tickets in Grants Pass. These were, you know, civil tickets where people would get fines. And if police noticed people, you know, doing this enough times, then they could issue them a trespass from a park. And then that would give, you know, for a certain number of days, somebody would be banned from the park. And if police caught them in the park before that time period was up, then the person could face criminal time. They could go to jail. And homeless people started racking up fines, you know, hundreds of dollars of fines. I talked to a lot of people who were

camping in the parks who had racked up these fines over the years. And each one would have multiple tickets. They had no way to pay. I talked to people who tried to challenge the tickets and they had to leave their belongings back in the park. And they would come back to find someone had taken their stuff or their things had been impounded. So it just seemed to be this cycle that actually was entrenching people more into homelessness. And yet at the same time, none of these people had left Grants Pass. So they did make it very uncomfortable for homeless people, but it doesn't seem to be working. People are not leaving. people are not leaving and these tickets and fines, it's something that people had been dealing with for years in Grants Pass. But in 2018, the Martin v. Boise case happens. And not long after that, a group of people in Grants Pass challenged these ordinances. And they used the Boise case to make their argument that just like in Boise, Grants Pass was punishing people for being involuntarily homeless. That this overlapping

group of local ordinances and Grants Pass had made it so there is nowhere to put a pillow and blanket on the ground and sleep without being in some kind of violation of a rule. And this group of local homeless people make the argument that everyone in grants pass who is homeless is involuntarily homeless. And you told us earlier that it was basically the lack of available shelter that makes a homeless person involuntarily homeless. So is there a homeless shelter in Grants Pass? Well, it sort of depends on the standard that you're using. So there is no public low barrier shelter that is easy for somebody to just walk in and stay for a night if they need some place to go. Grants Pass does not have a shelter like that. There is one shelter in Grants

Pass, but it's a religious shelter and there are lots of restrictions. I spoke with the head of the shelter who explained the purpose is really to get people back into the workforce. And so they have a 30-day program that's really designed for that purpose. And as part of that, people can't have pets. People are not allowed to smoke. They're required to attend Christian religious services. And some of the people who I interviewed who had chronic mental health and physical disabilities said that they had been turned away or weren't able to stay there because of the level of needs that they have. And so if you come in with any kind of issue like that, it can be a problem. That's a very long list of restrictions.

And of course, people are homeless for a lot of very different reasons. It sounds like a lot of these reasons might actually disqualify them from this particular shelter. So when they say they have nowhere else to go, if they're in Grants Pass, they kind of have a point. So that's what the court decided in 2022. When the courts heard this case, they agreed with the homeless plaintiffs that there's no low barrier shelter in Grants Pass and that the religious shelter did not meet the court's

requirements. But the city, who are actually now represented by the same lawyers who argued for Boise, keeps appealing the case. And they appeal up to the Ninth Circuit, just as in the Boise case. And the judges there find in favor of the homeless plaintiffs. And they find that Grants Pass's ordinances are so restrictive that there is no place where someone can lay down and sleep in Grants Pass, and that therefore the city has violated the Eighth Amendment and they cannot enforce these ordinances in the way that they have been for years. So at that point, the court upholds the Boise precedent, and we're kind of where we were when it all started.

But as we know, that's not the end of the story because this case stays in the court system. What happened? So by this point, the homelessness problem is really exploding throughout the western part of the U.S. with more visible encampments. And it really becomes a politically divisive issue. And leaders sort of across the political spectrum point to Boise as a root cause of the problem. So when Grant's Pass comes along, people saw that case as a way potentially to undo Boise, if only they could get it before the Supreme Court. We'll be right back.

Abby, you just told us that as homeless numbers went up and these homeless encampments really started spreading, it's no longer just conservatives who want the Supreme Court to revisit the Boise ruling. It's liberals, too. That's right. It's liberals too. everyone from the liberal governor of California and, you know, many progressive liberal cities to some of the most conservative legal groups. And, you know, they disagree about their reasoning, but they all are asking the court to clarify how to interpret the Boise decision. They are saying essentially that the Boise decision has been understood in different ways, you know, in all different parts of the West, and that that is causing confusion

and creating all sorts of problems. And they're blaming that on the Boise case. It's interesting, because after everything you told us about these extreme measures, really, that the city of Grants Pass took against homeless people. It is kind of surprising that these liberal bastions that you're mentioning are siding with the town in this case. You know, just to be clear, they are not saying that they support necessarily, you know, the way that Grants Pass or Boise had enforced their laws. But they are saying that the court rulings have tied their hands with this ambiguous decision on how to act. And what exactly is so ambiguous about the Boise decision? Which, if I remember correctly, simply said that if someone is involuntarily homeless, if they're

on the streets because there's no adequate shelter space available, they can't be punished for that. Yeah. So there are a couple of things that are sort of common threads in the cities and the groups that are asking for clarity from the court. And the first thing is that they're saying, you know, what is adequate shelter? That every homeless person's situation is different. Every homeless person's situation is different. So what are cities or places required to provide for people who are homeless? What is the standard that they need to meet? In order not to sleep on the street.

That's right. So, you know, if the standard is that a city has to have enough beds for everyone who is homeless, but certain kinds of shelters or beds wouldn't qualify, then kind of what are the rules around that? And the second thing is that they're asking for clarity around what involuntarily homeless means. And so in the Boise decision, that meant that someone is involuntarily homeless if there is not enough bed space for them to go to. But a lot of cities are saying, what about people who don't want to go into a shelter, even if there's a shelter bed available, if they have a pet or if they are a smoker or if something might prohibit them from going to a shelter, how is a city supposed to weigh that? And at what point would they cross

a line for the court? It's almost a philosophical question. Like, you know, if somebody doesn't want to be in a shelter, are they still allowed to sleep in a public space? Yeah, I mean, these are complicated questions that sort of go beyond the Eighth Amendment argument, but that a lot of the organizations that have reached out to the court through these front of the court briefs are asking. Okay, I can see that sort of the unifying element here is that in all these briefs, various people from across the spectrum are saying, you know, hello, Supreme Court, we basically need some clarity here. Give us some clarity. The question that I have is why did the Supreme Court agree to weigh in on Grants Pass after declining to take up Boise? Well, it's not possible for us to say for certain because the Supreme Court does not give reasons why it has agreed to hear or to not hear a case. They get

thousands of cases a year and they just, you know, they take up just a few of those and their deliberations are secret. But, you know, we can point to a few things. One is that the makeup of the court has changed. The court has gained conservative justices in the last few years. This court has not been shy about taking up hot button issues across the spectrum of American society. In this case, the court hasn't heard a major homelessness case like this. But I would really point to the sheer number and the range of the people who are petitioning the court to take a look at this case. These are major players in the country who are asking the court for guidance. And the Supreme Court does weigh in on issues of national importance. And the people who are asking for help clearly believe

that this is one of those issues. So let's start digging into the actual arguments. And maybe let's start with the city of Grants Pass. What are the central arguments that they're expected to make before the Supreme Court? So the city's arguments turn on this narrow legal issue of whether the Eighth Amendment applies or doesn't. And they say that it doesn't. But I actually think that in some ways that's not the most helpful way to sort of understanding what Grants Pass is arguing. What is really at the heart of their argument is that if the court upholds Grants Pass and Boise, that they are tying the hands of Grants Pass and hundreds of other towns and cities to actually act to solve issues of people camping in the parks, but also more broadly of public safety issues, of being able to address problems as they arise in sort of a fluid and flexible wayise holdings, that they will be constitutionalizing or sort of freezing in place and limiting all of these governments from acting. Right. This is essentially the argument being repeated again and again in those briefs that

you mentioned earlier, that unless the Supreme Court overturns these decisions, it's almost impossible for these cities to get the encampments under control. Yes, that's right. And they also argue they need to have flexibility in dealing actually with people who are homeless and being able to figure out using a local ordinance to try to convince someone to go to treatment. That they say, you know, they need carrots and sticks. They need to be able to use every tool that they can to be able to try to solve this problem. And how do we make sense of that argument when Grants Pass is clearly not using that many tools to deal with homeless people? For example, you know, it didn't have

shelters, as you mentioned. So the city's argument is that this just should not be an Eighth Amendment issue, that this is the wrong way to think about this case, that issues around homelessness and how a city handles it is a policy question. So things like shelter beds or the way that the city is handling their ordinances should really be left up to policymakers and city officials, not to this really broad constitutional argument. And so, you know, therefore, the city is likely to focus their argument entirely on this very narrow question. And how does the other side counter this argument? The homeless plaintiffs are going to argue that there's nothing in the lower court's decisions that say that cities can't enforce their laws,

that they can't stop people from littering, that they can't stop drug use, that they can't clear encampments if there becomes public safety problems. They're just saying that a city cannot not provide shelter and then make it illegal for people to lay down and sleep. So both sides are saying that a city should be able to take action when there's public disorder as a result of these homeless encampments. But they're pointing at each other and saying the way you want to handle homelessness is wrong. you want to handle homelessness is wrong. I think everyone in this case agrees that homelessness and the increase in homelessness is bad for everyone. It's bad for people who are camping in the park. It is bad for the community that nobody is saying that the current situation is tenable. Everyone is saying there need to be solutions. We need to be able to figure out what to do about homelessness and how to care for people who are homeless. How do we wrestle with all these problems?

It's just that the way that they think about it couldn't be farther apart. And what can you tell me about how the Supreme Court is actually expected to rule in this? There are a number of ways that the justices could decide on this case. They could take a really narrow approach and just focus on grants pass and the arguments about those local ordinances. I think that's somewhat unlikely because they've decided to take up this case of national importance. A ruling in favor of the homeless plaintiffs would mean that they've accepted this Eighth Amendment argument that you cannot criminalize being homeless. And a ruling for the city, you know, every legal expert I've talked to has said that would mean an end to Boise and that it would sort of break apart the current state that we've been living in for these last several years. I'm struck by how much this case and our conversation has been about policing homelessness, rather than actually

addressing the root causes of homelessness. We're not really talking about, say, the right to shelter or the right to treatment for people who are mentally ill and sleeping on the streets as a result, which is quite a big proportion. And at the end of the day, whatever way the ruling goes, it will be about the visibility of homelessness and not the root causes. Yeah, I think that's right. That's really kind of what's looming in the background of this case is what impact is it going to have?

Will it make things better or worse? And for who? And these court cases have really become this talking point for cities and for their leaders, blaming the spike in encampments and the visibility of homelessness on these court decisions. But homelessness, you know, everyone acknowledges is such a complicated issue. People have told me in interviews for the story, they've blamed increases in homelessness on everything from the pandemic to forest fires to skyrocketing housing costs in the West Coast. And that the role that Boise and now Grants Pass play in this has always been a little hard to pin down. And if the Supreme Court overturns those cases, then we'll really see whether they were

the obstacle that political leaders said that they were. And if these cases fall, you know, it sort of remains to be seen whether cities do try to find all these creative solutions with housing and services to try to help people who are homeless, or whether they sort of once again fall back on just sending people to jail. Abby, thank you very much. Thank you so much. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Thank you. retaliation that has brought the shadow war between the two countries out in the open. The scale and method of Friday's attack remained unclear, and the initial reaction in both Israel

and Iran was to downplay its significance. World leaders have urged both sides to exercise restraint in order to avoid sparking a broader war in the region. And 12 New Yorkers have been selected to decide Donald Trump's criminal trial in Manhattan, clearing the way for opening statements to begin as early as Monday. Seven new jurors were added in short order on Thursday afternoon, hours after two others who had already been picked

were abruptly excused. Trump is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment made to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign. If the jury convicts him, he faces up to four years in prison. Finally, the New York Police Department said it took at least 108 protesters into custody at Columbia University after university officials called the police to respond to a pro-Palestinian demonstration and dismantle a tent encampment. The crackdown prompted more students to vow that demonstrations would continue, expressing outrage at both the roundup of the student protesters

and the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. Today's episode was produced by Olivia Natt, Stella Tan, Thank you. by Will Reed, Pat McCusker, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brandberg and Ben Landsberg of Wanderley. That's it for The Daily. I'm Katrin Benhold. See you on Monday.