Community Housing Network President Calls Grants Pass Decision ‘Deeply Disappointing and Unkind’

CHN calls for moving away from criminalization as an approach to end homelessness towards proven housing-based solutions

It’s hard to imagine fining and jailing a person for the basic human act of sleeping while in public places, but the unhoused community has been facing that kind of excessive punishment for decades.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s momentous June ruling has opened the door for local governments to continue criminalizing homelessness – now more aggressively by giving them the authority to enforce camping bans and punish people experiencing homelessness for sleeping outside, even when adequate shelter space is unavailable.

In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the high court ruled in Grants Pass v. Johnson that cities enforcing anti-camping bans, even if unhoused individuals have no other place to go, punishes conduct, not status, and so Robinson v. California (1962), which established that it is cruel and unusual to criminalize a person’s status, does not apply.

Courts’ interpretations have opposed punishing unavoidable, human behavior, such as sleeping or using a blanket to try and survive a winter night, particularly in the absence of alternatives. This interpretation was upheld first in the predecessor to Grants Pass, the 2018 Martin vs. Boise decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled cities can’t enforce criminal ordinances that punish people experiencing homelessness just for existing in public when there is no adequate available shelter.

Gorsuch was joined by the rest of the court’s conservatives, including Chief Justice John Roberts.

“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 opinion read.

The case originated in Grants Pass, Oregon, where the city issued $300 tickets to individuals for sleeping in public spaces, despite the lack of any safe accessible shelter beds. The city doesn’t maintain a public emergency shelter, and the rental vacancy rate is one percent, or basically zero.

“This decision is deeply disappointing and unkind,” said Kirsten Elliott, president at CHN. “It unjustly blames individuals for homelessness, ignoring the reality of insufficient housing and services. Homelessness stems from a lack of affordable housing, stagnant wages, and lack of supportive services. This decision highlights the urgent need for advocacy to ensure safe, decent housing for all, living wages and robust mental health services. Let’s push for real change and support policies that truly address homelessness.” 

The Impact of Criminalizing Homelessness

There is a harmful false narrative that people are voluntarily homeless by refusing help, putting the blame on the individual when it’s a much more complex issue compounded by the fact that there simply isn’t enough safe, affordable housing – a nationwide issue.

There has been a dramatic growth in laws and policies across the U.S. that criminalize homelessness. Since 2006, laws that prohibit sleeping in public have increased by 50 percent. Out of 187 cities surveyed in a September 2023 report published by the National Homelessness Law Center, 55 percent prohibit sitting or lying in public, 72 percent prohibit camping in public, and 60 percent prohibit public loitering, loafing, or vagrancy. Oftentimes, unhoused persons face steep civil and court-imposed fines and fees for violating these laws, which further perpetuates cycles of poverty and leaves them without the means to afford necessities like food and transportation.

The growth in criminalization is associated with a nationwide growth in unsheltered homelessness. Cities have sought to make homelessness invisible by criminalizing the very activities unhoused people must engage in to stay alive.

It costs taxpayers around $31,065 a year to criminalize a single person experiencing homelessness. This might mean that a person is taken to jail where they remain for weeks if they cannot pay their bail or fines, perhaps losing custody of their children, property and/or employment in the process. This weakens community ties and once released, they could have criminal records that make it more difficult to get or keep a job, housing or public benefits. 

The U.S. locks up more people per capita than any other nation, at the staggering rate of 583 per 100,000 residents.

Multiple reports over the course of a decade, according to a Homeless Voice article, have said the cost of criminalizing homelessness surpasses what the cost of housing and helping the homeless population would be – $10,051 per year.

Communities of color, LGBTQ+ youth and adults, and mentally and physically disabled persons, already disproportionately affected by homelessness, are most likely to be further marginalized by criminalization.

People with disabilities were at the heart of the Grants Pass case. At the trial court level, multiple people submitted declarations that they were not able to stay at the only shelter in Grants Pass because of their disqualifying disabilities. For example, CarrieLynn Hill could not stay at the shelter because it banned residents from using the nebulizer she needed regularly in her room. Debra Blake’s disabilities prevented her from working, and she could not comply with the shelter’s requirement to work 40 hours a week. Hill and Blake are examples of the impossible choices faced by so many homeless disabled people. They cannot be at the shelter, but they risk prosecution under the ordinances if they remain unhoused.

This is compounded by the lack of physically accessible and affordable housing which pushes people with disabilities who rely on Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income into homelessness. Only six percent of homes nationwide are wheelchair accessible.

Policy Solutions, Not Criminalization, Can Solve Homelessness

CHN’s CEO Marc Craig calls out the absence of public policy, which has manufactured this crisis.

“Do municipalities have the right to enact ordinances that protect public safety, including health and sanitation, and enforce zoning laws, of course they do. Otherwise, it would be chaos,” he said. “I don’t think it would be reasonable to expect that the court would say ‘no, municipalities can’t enact any ordinances about people living in tents.’ However, I don’t think it’s reasonable either for municipalities to enact an ordinance that criminalizes homelessness absent any public policy to address homelessness.”

Marc stressed the need for dignified and innovative responses to the affordable housing crisis, expansion of street outreach programs, extra support and resources, and adequate interim shelter options.

“The court’s decision is not a solution,” he said. “It would be more humane and more economically viable to come up with a public policy. This will fix nothing and in fact, will probably make it worse.”

CHN, like other homelessness advocacy groups, denounced the ruling, warning that it will further marginalize vulnerable Americans – the 250,000+ people who sleep outside each night, as well as millions of Americans who are just one missed paycheck away from homelessness.

There is a national campaign, Housing Not Handcuffs, created by the National Homelessness Law Center and the National Coalition for the Homeless, to end the criminalization of homelessness and advocate for housing as a human right.

This collective of homelessness advocates, activists, human rights attorneys, nonprofit organizations, and on-the-ground change makers hope to use the Grants Pass attention to focus the national conversation on policy solutions they say will solve homelessness, including universal rental assistance, repairs to public housing, and funds for eviction prevention – all of which are proven to work. They plan to call for $365 billion in the next year to fund these initiatives. 

Now is the time to put our elected officials at every level of government on notice and hold them accountable.  

The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) estimates that 18,000 people lose their homes in the U.S. each week. Most have never been homeless before and many of them are adults over the age of 55 so the need for funding for housing is greater than ever before.

Beyond reenergizing and organizing a movement to demand a significant increase in federal funding that keeps pace with rising local needs, donate to nonprofit organizations like CHN that are positioned to help vulnerable communities gain access to preventative resources in the short term, which is a key part of ending homelessness.

A multifaceted approach is required to solve the problem, involving not only funding, but also community collaboration, and permanent housing options paired with supportive services for people with disabilities, mental health concerns, and addictions who can best address those concerns when housed with no timelines or program-required expectations.

As the debate continues about how to balance the needs of people experiencing homelessness with ensuring security in public spaces in the wake of the Grants Pass decision, let’s not lose sight of the strong connection between homelessness and the broader challenge of affordable housing.

By backing bipartisan initiatives to increase the availability of affordable housing and applying practical, evidence-based strategies to tackle and prevent homelessness, we can make substantial progress in guaranteeing that every American has a home.