U.S. Supreme Court sides with Oregon city, allows ban on homeless people sleeping outdoors

The U.S. Supreme Court said in a 6-3 decision on Friday, June 28, 2024, that the enforcement of local laws that regulate camping on public property, including by people without homes, does not constitute the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. (Photo by Jub Rubjob/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Friday sided with a local ordinance in Oregon that effectively bans homeless people from sleeping outdoors, and local governments will be allowed to enforce those laws.

In a 6-3 decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion that the enforcement of those local laws that regulate camping on public property does not constitute the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

“Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it,” he wrote. “The Constitution’s Eighth Amendment serves many important functions, but it does not authorize federal judges to wrest those rights and responsibilities from the American people and in their place dictate this Nation’s homelessness policy.”

The case originated in Grants Pass, a city in Oregon that argues its ordinance is a solution to the city’s homelessness crisis, which includes fines and potential jail time for repeat offenders who camp or sleep outdoors.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent arguing that the ordinance targets the status of being homeless and is therefore a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

“Grants Pass’s Ordinances criminalize being homeless,” she wrote. “The Ordinances’ purpose, text, and enforcement confirm that they target status, not conduct. For someone with no available shelter, the only way to comply with the Ordinances is to leave Grants Pass altogether.”

During oral arguments , the justices seemed split over ideological lines , with the conservative justices siding with the town in Oregon, arguing that policies and ordinances around homelessness are complex, and should be left up to local elected representatives rather than the courts.

The liberal justices criticized the city’s argument that homelessness is not a status protected under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. The liberal justices argued the Grants Pass ordinance criminalized the status of being homeless.

The Biden administration took the middle ground in the case, and U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler offered partial support.

“It’s the municipality’s determination, certainly in the first instance with a great deal of flexibility, how to address the question of homelessness,” he said during oral arguments in late April.

North Carolina housing advocates respond

North Carolina advocates for people experiencing homelessness expressed disappointment at Friday’s ruling.

Stephanie Watkins-Cruz, director of housing policy at the N.C. Housing Coalition, said the court’s ruling will have the effect of criminalizing homelessness.

“This is really disappointing,” Watkins-Cruz said. “It was a chance for the highest court in the land to take a stand on protecting people who have nowhere else to go because of policy failures and it was a chance to treat housing like a human right by protecting and acknowledging that there is not enough housing and that there are more permanent and effective ways to solve homelessness.”

In North Carolina, Charlotte recently adopted an ordinance that critics say disproportionately affects people experiencing homelessness. The law makes sleeping on benches, public defecation, panhandling, public drinking, public masturbation and trespassing offenses that can lead to arrest. These were previously ticketed offenses.

Earlier this month during a Housing Coalition conference, Latonya Agard, executive director of NC Coalition to End Homelessness, said an unfavorable ruling in the case could have severe consequences for the nearly 10,000 people in North Carolina who are experiencing homelessness.

A major concern, Agard said, is that more people experiencing homelessness will find themselves involved in the judicial system.

“This can be a sort of a snowball effect for people who are already on the brink, who are experiencing homelessness, because this means if that happens, you’re justice involved, so you may have something on your criminal record,” Agard said.

She also worried that Black people and other people of color will be disproportionately impacted. Fifty-two percent of North Carolina’s homeless population is Black, she said.

“In my mind, I think about, you know, the 80s, stop and frisk in New York, and so I see this almost as an opportunity for that to be re-birthed, or reiterated in a different way,” Agard said.

“Stop-and-frisk” was a controversial New York City Police Department practice of temporarily detaining, questioning and at times searching civilians and suspects on the street for weapons and other contraband. It was ultimately found to be unconstitutional.

Greg Childress contributed to this breaking news story, which will be updated.

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