Cities now may enforce basic health and safety laws including a ban on public camping. But will they?
FILE – Cassy Leach, a nurse who leads a group of volunteers who provide food, medical care and other basic goods to the hundreds of homeless people living in the parks, talks to Kimberly Marie, who is homeless and camping in Fruitdale Park on March 21, 2024, in Grants Pass, Ore. On Friday, June 28, the Supreme Court ruled that cities can enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outdoors in West Coast areas where shelter space is lacking.
The Jones settlement required the city to stop enforcing the ban on sleeping on the sidewalk everywhere in Los Angeles between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. until 1,250 additional units of housing for the chronically homeless were constructed, half in the Skid Row area. In return, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling would not be a binding precedent in future cases.
Now, with the decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, Martin v. Boise is overruled. The court held that the people of the United States have the right to work out the best solutions to the challenging problem. “The Constitution’s Eighth Amendment serves many important functions,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch for the court, “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.
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