SoCal officials respond to Supreme Court ruling on encampments

The city of San Bernardino and officials representing the Los Angeles area responded to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Friday easing legal restrictions on removing homeless encampments.

In the case Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court considered whether cities could legally clear encampments and have police cite homeless individuals for sleeping in public places. A 6-3 majority found that laws prohibiting camping in public places were not considered cruel and unusual punishment.

In December 2018, two homeless individuals filed a lawsuit in December 2018 on behalf of the homeless population of Grants Pass, Oregon, that challenged the city’s anti-camping regulations. The city is currently under an injunction preventing local police from removing encampments or citing people who sleep outside in public space.

“Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court will not solve the homelessness issue, however it does provide much needed clarity,” according to a statement by city spokesman Jeff Kraus. “It confirms that cities like San Bernardino have the legal authority to maintain and clean public property and can make that public property available to all residents, not just those who are unhoused.

“We hope this ruling will encourage more individuals to accept the services available to help them stabilize their lives and we look forward to returning San Bernardino parks to our families and children.

“The ruling does not affect the current injunction the City of San Bernardino is under restricting its ability to address encampments,” Kraus worte. “So, despite the ruling, the City remains prohibited from performing encampment cleanups. We continue to work to have the injunction lifted or end the case and expect to have a resolution very soon.”

San Bernardino is subject to a preliminary injunction issued in January by Judge Terry Hatter in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the SoCal Trash Army and three individuals alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The plaintiffs also claim authorities illegal handled individuals’ personal belongings during an encampment cleanup.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 rejection of the constitutional challenge held that penalizing unhoused people for sleeping outside when there is no available shelter does not violate the Eighth Amendment. Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

The ruling gave cities and counties broader legal powers to arrest, cite and fine people for sleeping outdoors in public areas and reversed legal protections for homeless residents in California and other states.

A prior federal court decision in Martin v. Boise by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals “held that the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause bars cities from enforcing public-camping ordinances like these against homeless individuals whenever the number of homeless individuals in a jurisdiction exceeds the number of ‘practically available’ shelter beds,” according to the Supreme Court ruling.

“A handful of federal judges (can’t) begin to ‘match’ the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding ‘how best to handle’ a pressing social question like homelessness,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. “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.”

In the dissenting opinion, Sotomayor wrote, “Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. For some people, sleeping outside is their only option. The City of Grants Pass jails and fines those people for sleeping anywhere in public at any time, including in their cars, if they use as little as a blanket to keep warm or a rolled-up shirt as a pillow. For people with no access to shelter, that punishes them for being homeless. That is unconscionable and unconstitutional. Punishing people for their status is ‘cruel and unusual’ under the Eighth Amendment.”

Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said in a statement that the court ruling “empowers local governments to make judicious decisions about when to apply enforcement.”

“To decrease the number of homeless individuals living on our streets, we need to use every tool available to compassionately extend housing hand in hand with supportive services,” Barger said. “We must also be balanced in our approach to enforcement so that communities can enjoy public spaces taken over by homeless encampments. …

“I want to be clear,” she added. “The criminalization of people experiencing homelessness is wrong. But, having another tool to make measurable and effective change is critical. Our county and its cities must work collaboratively and in sync with one another so that we can successfully end homelessness. Homelessness is not a problem that can simply be shuffled around.”

LA County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis in a statement called the ruling “unconscionable and inhumane,” and said, “people experiencing homelessness should not be punished, whether it’s a criminal violation or a civil citation, for simply trying to survive.”

“Make no mistake, anti-camping ordinances will be implemented unevenly across Los Angeles County by some jurisdictions that refuse to be a part of the solution in offering housing or wrap-around services,” Solis said. “Allowing jurisdictions to implement anti-camping ordinances will put a strain on those who want to do the right thing. Furthermore, it will only enable jurisdictions to shirk their responsibility and push their unhoused residents across their borders into other cities or even unincorporated areas. …

“Allowing unsheltered homelessness to be a crime, even when there is no shelter, would mean more people cycling in and out of our carceral systems, and would bring us no closer to solving our homelessness crisis.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom supported the court’s decision.

“Today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court provides state and local officials the definitive authority to implement and enforce policies to clear unsafe encampments from our streets,” Newsom said in a statement. “This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common sense measures to protect the safety and well-being of our communities.”

LA County Public Defender Ricardo D. García in a statement called the ruling “a shameful failure to addressing the underlying issues that led to this crisis. It is fundamentally wrong to punish individuals for their lack of housing, which is often the result of systemic failures rather than personal choice.”

Va Lecia Adams Kellum, CEO of Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, said the high court decision could lead to the numerous cities in LA County taking different approaches to enforcement.

“In the wake of the Grants Pass decision, it will be up to every city in the County of Los Angeles and the Board of Supervisors to decide how they move forward,” Adams Kellum said in a statement.

“LAHSA will stay focused on ending unsheltered homelessness and speeding up how quickly people move into permanent housing,” she said. “We do not agree with criminalizing homelessness. In fact, the results of this year’s Homeless Count strongly support our best practices approach that aligns all levels of government and our providers around saving lives by resolving encampments and bringing people indoors. We believe in housing and services, not arrests.”

The most recent homeless count conducted in January reported Los Angeles County had an unhoused population of 75,312, compared with 75,518 in 2023, a 0.27% drop. The city of LA had 45,252 people experiencing homelessness, compared with 46,260 in 2023, a decrease of 2.2%.

LA Mayor Karen Bass’ office touted these 2024 findings: homelessness in the city is down for the first time in six years; street homelessness dropped 10%, the first double-digit decrease in at least 9 years’; makeshift shelters declined 38%; and “the number of people who moved into permanent housing is at an all time high.”

San Bernardino’s homeless population this year was 1,417 with 977 unsheltered, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

According to national data, the U.S. homeless population increased last year to 12%, its highest level on record. Rising rents and dwindling pandemic relief have made it harder to obtain adequate shelter. Roughly 33% of the nation’s homeless people live in California.

City News Service contributed to this report.