Supreme Court allows camping bans targeting homeless encampments
Supreme Court allows camping bans targeting homeless encampments
The 6-3 decision from the court in the case known as City of Grants Pass v. Johnson is its most significant involving homelessness in decades.
You're viewing a single thread.
Living in Portland and seeing the Mayor a couple of days ago announce he was enforcing the camping ban starting on Monday, I pretty much expected this.
Frankly it's overdue. The people who want to argue "what about human dignity??!?!?" are ignoring the realities of the situation:
The government isn't ignoring human dignity, the campers already beat them to it.
And how does charging a homeless person $300 for falling asleep outside with a blanket fix any of that?
It's not charging a homeless person for falling asleep outside.
It's offering them shelter space and charging them when they refuse.
"Hey, let's help get you into a shelter..."
"Fuck you! I won't do what you tell me!"
Which, unfortunately, is all too common.
https://apnews.com/article/portland-oregon-homeless-camping-rules-419270cc3c36417789affb2b05df4da0
"Those who accept offers of shelter won’t be cited, according to Wheeler’s office. For those who are cited, the courts will determine whether to waive fines. The ordinance says it encourages diverting people to assessment, emergency shelter or housing instead of jail."
The article and ruling isn’t about Portland, it’s about Grants Pass.
At the center of the case is Grants Pass, a city of roughly 40,000 in southern Oregon with ordinances that bar camping or sleeping on public property or in city parks. The city's rules define "campsite" as "any place where bedding, sleeping bag, or other material used for bedding purposes, or any stove or fire is placed."
As far as I can find their ordinance has no such exceptions.
Thanks to the Supreme Court, it's no longer Grants Pass, each municipality can set their own rules and in Oregon, it's already been decided at the State level.
https://www.orcities.org/resources/reference/homeless-solutions/homelessness-public-space
"HB 3115 requires that any city or county law regulating the acts of sitting, lying, sleeping or keeping warm and dry outside on public property must be “objectively reasonable” based on the totality of the circumstances as applied to all stakeholders, including persons experiencing homelessness. What is objectively reasonable may look different in different communities.
The bill retains cities’ ability to enact reasonable time, place and manner regulations, aiming to preserve the ability of cities to manage public spaces effectively for the benefit of an entire community."
You seem to be overlooking that SCOTUS specifically ruled that it is constitutional to charge homeless people $300 for falling asleep outside with a blanket, which is what the thread was about.
I get it, what I'm saying is Oregon passed HB 3115 in response to policies like those in Grants Pass.
So even though the Supreme Court is allowing it, State Law supercedes it.
That doesn’t really do much for the other 49 states + DC or say anything meaningful about the decision itself.
This is true, but because Grants Pass is subject to Oregon law, it's a little different for them.
What will be interesting to see is how big cities deal with the ruling. San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia...
Badically any city big enough where you don't have to mention the state. :)