US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps

As is common, the article does not link to the actual opinion. Here it is:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf

> Plaintiffs insist the Court should extend Robinson to prohibit the enforcement of laws that proscribe certain acts that are in some sense “involuntary,” because some homeless individuals cannot help but do what the law forbids. The Ninth Circuit pursued this line of thinking below and in Martin, but this Court already rejected it in Powell v. Texas. In Powell, the Court confronted a defendant who had been convicted under a Texas statute making it a crime to “get drunk or be found in a state of intoxication in any public place.” Like the plaintiffs here, Powell argued that his drunkenness was an “involuntary” byproduct of his status as an alcoholic. The Court did not agree that Texas’s law effectively criminalized Powell’s status as an alcoholic... This case is no different.

If you told me this quote was from an Onion article, I'd say "well obviously."

I feel like the outcome of this is unilaterally bad.

Most homeless are elderly and mentally Ill. The solutions are institutionalization and retirement housing/pensions but no state did this after Reagan and instead made homelessness an issue to ignore.

Faced with the ability to legally incarcerate nearly 600,000 people, states likely won't hesitate to do just that without a second thought.

For a country that prides itself on freedom and liberty, having the largest prison population in the world is surely a damning indictment of the conviction.

I don't really understand how it could be any other way.

If you envision a hypothetical city which has too many unhoused persons relative to the city's financial ability to support those people - then what? The unhoused just die in the street unable to be moved somewhere that has sufficient resources to support them?

I get that there's a lot more nuance to this problem and that the ruling can be abused/used to enforce NIMBYism/jail the unhoused, but, fundamentally, cities have to have the ability to move citizens because the city is aware of its own financial ability to provide support, but the citizens within are allowed to be uninformed.

Homeless need shelter and help. It is inhumane that we let them rot on the streets.

City dwellers need safe and clean streets and public transportation. Kids should be able to walk to school by themselves.

These two things don’t need to be in conflict.

So let me get this straight... People unable to afford a home, with no communal shelter, are fined for making alternate arrangements. Of course, given that they're already in a bad financial situation, they won't be able to pay the fines. So it's jail time. I guess that's a kind of shelter, but then what happens when the jails become full? Where do the extras go then? And what happens to those released with fresh marks on their record and still no way to afford anything? Maybe start culling the flock? I'm seeing no path forward where any of this makes sense.

This is not about criminalizing homeless. This was San Francisco's position in their brief:

To address the homelessness crisis.” San Francisco Brief 7. The city “uses enforcement of its laws prohibiting camping” not to criminalize homelessness, but “as one important tool among others to encourage individuals experiencing homelessness to accept services and to help ensure safe and accessible sidewalks and public spaces.”

Dumb decision, but we really just gotta build more homes mainly.

A good overview of why this is the best solution to homelessness: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...

To wit:

> Held: The enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

*Correction: the cities can ban camps.

It would still be a violation to ban "homeless" camps, and the decision was very clear that homelessness is a protected status, but just because you have a protected status does not mean you get to break laws that do not target you.

"Under the city’s laws, it makes no difference whether the charged defendant is homeless, a backpacker on vacation passing through town, or a student who abandons his dorm room to camp out in protest on the lawn of a municipal building."

Big W for the prison industrial complex.

Discussion from when the argument was being heard: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40107034

I was technically homeless for 9 years.

This is the further erosion of social safety nets and criminalization of poverty while dodging the responsibility of not helping people who need it.

From the majority opinion page 20 [1]:

> Under the city's laws, 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.

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf

Yes and no. They said it’s not cruel and unusual punishment to be fined / spend a few days in jail.

The real issue should have been intent, but the litigants and lower courts didn’t base the case on lack of capacity to comply / lack of mens rea / etc. They wanted a precedent allowing for urban camping even if you’re not homeless.

This really makes me sad. I used to struggle with housing and spent time living out of my car. I got lucky and was able to work my way into a tech career over a decade, but it feels like criminalization of hardship is just pulling the rug out from under people that really just need someone to care.

What's that story where they solved the problem of poor people stepping on the property of landowners, by giving them helium balloon grants?

The Court didn't make it illegal for cities to provide services to the homeless. Some, many, (most?) simply find it easier to push homeless around between each other and off into the margins (outside of their municipal boundaries) instead of addressing the issue. The Court isn't a social services agency and rulings shouldn't be made on that basis. Cites, states, and even the federal government have the power to address homelessness. Using homeless camps as a perverse bottom tier safety net isn't a solution and is completely tangential to the legality of regulating their existence. I don't understand this notion that court rulings should be based on social policy instead of Constitutional law.

Once again, governments are not being limited in their ability to go out and provide services.

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

Good news: our fundamental freedom to die in the streets has been preserved.

[dupe]

Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40820994

Can't have a home if you don't have a job. Can't get a job if you're homeless.

It's the year 2024 after the birth of Jesus Christ, mankind has produced more wealth and technology than we ever thought it was possible, meanwhile we're living this miserable life, working these shitty jobs, while less than 1% of the population has more money than they could ever spend.

Capitalism should be left behind, we're ruining the only planet we have. It's a system with a critical bug deep in it's core and it'll never be fixed.

This is insane, so you are at your lowest in life and it is now illegal for you to exist.

Good!