The question has confounded western cities. The Supreme Court will weigh in
leaders in Grants Pass, Oregon, held a meeting to brainstorm ideas for how to tackle the city’s growing “vagrancy problem”. A record of that meeting states that participants suggested “driving repeat offenders out of town and leaving them there”, and buying homeless people a bus ticket to anywhere else. “The point”, said Lily Morgan, a city-council member, “is to make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road.
The city, tucked between the Cascade and Siskiyou mountains north of the California border, banned sleeping and camping in public places. Over the next few years Ed Johnson, the director of litigation for the Oregon Law Centre, a legal charity, started to hear from homeless people in Grants Pass. They were woken by police, he recalls, slapped with fines they couldn’t pay and thrown in jail. In 2018 Mr Johnson sued the city on behalf of his homeless clients.
Western politicians are hoping the court’s ruling will offer clarity on how to tackle the proliferation of tent encampments. Half of the growth inbetween 2020 and 2023 came from the nine western states that comprise the Ninth Circuit. More than a quarter came from California alone. Oskar Rey, a lawyer who advised cities on how to comply with the Boise and Grants Pass rulings, argues that they are narrower than many think.
Still, some policymakers argue that the courts have tied their hands. In some cases that is true. In 2022 a federal judge interpreted therulings broadly, and blocked San Francisco from clearing encampments when there is no other shelter available. Politicians have another reason to blame the courts: it is easier to whine about judges than to shoulder the blame themselves for failed policies.is also revealing of a larger trend.
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