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Metlakatla, I totally hear everything you're saying. I have lived adjacent to this problem in Santa Monica, New York City and Portland. It is awful, never said it wasn't. I hate it, never said I didn't. What I'm interested in is how this gets argued legally and constitutionally. I don't know how this will come down, but it's hard to see how municipalities are granted the kind of authority they'd need to substantially address the problem.
Surely this discussion doesn't have to live in the most extreme ends of the opinion spectrum. If "the public" has the right to use public land as it sees fit, then we'd need to look at what restrictions (of any kind) would ever be permissible, and based on what. Public health and safety is one reason. Perhaps economic interests are a reason, for example, the homeless more or less occupy a place with retail businesses by encampments on the public sidewalks. Those businesses lose customers, which is bad for them, but also creates an area with fewer and more marginal businesses, which then generate less tax revenue for a city, and so forth. Another reason might be simple congestion, lack of access. There are others, I'm sure, but since the question before the court is based on "cruel and unusual punishment", it seems like the court will have to decide on whether it actually is cruel and (or?) unusual. If it's not, then the question is answered. If it is found to be cruel and unusual, then what would municipalities have to do to mitigate the cruelty of the punishment? Allow camping anywhere? Set aside a designated camping area as an alternative? And what action is cruel and unusual? Just disallowing loitering over the course of a day, or is it the act of waking people up when they're asleep? Making them move their stuff? I know my city would cite me if I left my personal possessions on the sidewalk outside my house, even though the maintenance of that stretch of public sidewalk is my responsibility financially and otherwise to keep clear and in good repair. Is it cruel and unusual to not provide a place to go for people with nowhere to go? How would police or rangers or whatever ever be able to know if a person really has no place to go? What if the rousted person just doesn't want to go to the shelter or the designated area? Is it still "cruel and unusual" to put less weight on their preference over the impact they're having with regard to public health and safety and economic impacts? It's just an interesting issue for the court to decide based on the "cruel and unusual" metric. How I feel about the presence of homeless people in public spaces is my own deal, but technically, legally it's a really interesting question.
As a general standard, I think you treat homeless the same way that you treat everyone else. Right now, the homeless get a pass and are given favorable treatment. If you're caught loitering in closed city parks/beaches after close and are not clearly homeless, you're given a ticket here in Honolulu as an example. The homeless are allowed to stay, almost certainly due to this decision by the 9th Circuit, which Hawaii falls under for federal issues.
In NYC it is easier to be homeless given the 24/7 nature of the subway system. The homeless can ride trains from one end of the line to the other before getting onto another line and doing the same for exhaustion and not run afoul of any loitering rules. Similarly, homeless anywhere who aren't actually camping out and making public spaces their home I'd wager wouldn't (or shouldn't, IMO) be hassled.
You can also enforce more targeted laws such as public health and safety statutes, but honestly that's a slippier slope as being homeless doesn't inherently make you a public safety concern I'd think that someone complaining that the sight of homeless.
In my book, and particularly for those cities with adequate shelter space, you either keep it moving and comply with the law like everyone else, or hope to find public "camping" grounds where your presence isn't disturbing the general public. All I know is that the current system isn't working.
The big problem with the 9th Circuit's ruling--and what I'd bet the Supreme Court will strike down--is that it makes a mockery of the 8th Amendment. I'd wager that the Supreme Court will hold that there is zero historical basis to hold homeless sweeps (even in the absence of public shelter, especially since public shelter isn't a right) are neither cruel nor unusual. And anti-loitering laws (under vagrancy laws in general) have been a part of American history since before the founding.
Metlakatla, I totally hear everything you're saying. I have lived adjacent to this problem in Santa Monica, New York City and Portland. It is awful, never said it wasn't. I hate it, never said I didn't. What I'm interested in is how this gets argued legally and constitutionally. I don't know how this will come down, but it's hard to see how municipalities are granted the kind of authority they'd need to substantially address the problem.
Sorry, Jessie, but you lost me with your first remark in this thread in which you appear to have attempted to paint me as some sort of MAGA extremist, but maybe someone else will have the in-depth discussion you're trying to initiate. You might try posting a similar thread in the Politics and Other Controversies forum here, though I wouldn't count on finding any 8th amendment experts (or anyone who even knows what it is) in that mess.
Last edited by Metlakatla; 01-14-2024 at 04:54 PM..
Sorry, Jessie, but you lost me with your first remark in this thread in which you appear to have attempted to paint me as some sort of MAGA extremist, but maybe someone else will have the in-depth discussion you're trying to initiate. You might try posting a similar thread in the Politics and Controversies forum here, though I wouldn't count on finding any 8th amendment experts (or anyone who even knows what it is) in that mess. Personally, I created the thread with the object of generating casual conversation among Oregon residents.
As to the extreme ends of the opinion spectrum, conversations often get lost in comments like "the sidewalks are covered in human poop" and encampments block the whole sidewalk or the homeless are harassing innocent bystanders. And yes, of course those things happen although usually you can easily walk past a sidewalk camp, and just because there's poop we don't outlaw dogs. Harassment, when coming from a homeless person isn't any different from harassment by a housed person. The harassment is the violation, not the condition of the harasser.
To talk about the presence of homeless people in sweeping terms where they actually become the violation, instead of the things they may sometimes do being the violation, that's what I mean about extremes in the conversation. I get that venting is sometimes necessary. Just saying it makes conversation about the legal and constitutional aspects really hard.
As a general standard, I think you treat homeless the same way that you treat everyone else. Right now, the homeless get a pass and are given favorable treatment. If you're caught loitering in closed city parks/beaches after close and are not clearly homeless, you're given a ticket here in Honolulu as an example. The homeless are allowed to stay, almost certainly due to this decision by the 9th Circuit, which Hawaii falls under for federal issues.
In NYC it is easier to be homeless given the 24/7 nature of the subway system. The homeless can ride trains from one end of the line to the other before getting onto another line and doing the same for exhaustion and not run afoul of any loitering rules. Similarly, homeless anywhere who aren't actually camping out and making public spaces their home I'd wager wouldn't (or shouldn't, IMO) be hassled.
You can also enforce more targeted laws such as public health and safety statutes, but honestly that's a slippier slope as being homeless doesn't inherently make you a public safety concern I'd think that someone complaining that the sight of homeless.
In my book, and particularly for those cities with adequate shelter space, you either keep it moving and comply with the law like everyone else, or hope to find public "camping" grounds where your presence isn't disturbing the general public. All I know is that the current system isn't working.
The big problem with the 9th Circuit's ruling--and what I'd bet the Supreme Court will strike down--is that it makes a mockery of the 8th Amendment. I'd wager that the Supreme Court will hold that there is zero historical basis to hold homeless sweeps (even in the absence of public shelter, especially since public shelter isn't a right) are neither cruel nor unusual. And anti-loitering laws (under vagrancy laws in general) have been a part of American history since before the founding.
Yes, for sure the homeless are given a pass in a lot of places. I was in the Penn Station train hall (NYC) a couple weeks ago waiting for a train. Penn Station has been recently remodeled with architectural and design choices that make it not easy for people to loiter (for example, there are no open-to-the-unticketed-public seats or benches), but on a lower level not as easily seen there were several homeless (I assume) people laying on the floor, passed out or sleeping. The security people came around at a certain point and woke them up and told them they needed to move on. One of them didn't know where else to go and the guard suggested the subway. I mean, I am in the train station a lot and I appreciate that it is kept clean and pleasant for the thousands of train users that pass through it everyday, but those guards, they were civil and not unkind, but they were firm and they did get the homeless up and out of there, but no one has a solution... except to move the problem somewhere else. As a person who also rides the subway, well, you can see the problem.
Last edited by Jessie Mitchell; 01-14-2024 at 05:25 PM..
The big problem with the 9th Circuit's ruling--and what I'd bet the Supreme Court will strike down--is that it makes a mockery of the 8th Amendment. I'd wager that the Supreme Court will hold that there is zero historical basis to hold homeless sweeps (even in the absence of public shelter, especially since public shelter isn't a right) are neither cruel nor unusual. And anti-loitering laws (under vagrancy laws in general) have been a part of American history since before the founding.
Just to clarify (for me), I'm getting a little lost in the syntax here, are you saying you believe the Supreme Court will find homeless sweeps are not cruel and unusual?
As to the extreme ends of the opinion spectrum, conversations often get lost in comments like "the sidewalks are covered in human poop" and encampments block the whole sidewalk or the homeless are harassing innocent bystanders. And yes, of course those things happen although usually you can easily walk past a sidewalk camp, and just because there's poop we don't outlaw dogs. Harassment, when coming from a homeless person isn't any different from harassment by a housed person. The harassment is the violation, not the condition of the harasser.
To talk about the presence of homeless people in sweeping terms where they actually become the violation, instead of the things they may sometimes do being the violation, that's what I mean about extremes in the conversation. I get that venting is sometimes necessary. Just saying it makes conversation about the legal and constitutional aspects really hard.
What a twist. I don't believe I stated that ALL homeless people "harrass innocent bystanders." What I stated was that visiting a public park in my city comes with a virtual guarantee of being harassed by at least one homeless individual. The "housed" people aren't the ones running around screaming that they can't light their fentanyl pipes, setting up chop shops on the sidewalks, leaving their needles and other biowaste wherever they please, etc. As far as enforcement, harassment by a homeless person is indeed different from harassment by a "housed" person. As another poster stated, the homeless are given a pass unless their behavior becomes so extreme that even LE can't ignore it.
Your statement about poop and dogs makes no sense. We're legally obligated to clean up after our dogs; the homeless are apparently held to a lower standard, even though they have access to public restrooms in the parks they've taken over.
As far as your continued insistence that "you can easily walk past a sidewalk camp," you must have bigger sidewalks and/or smaller sidewalk camps where you live. And again, homeowners are legally obligated to maintain the sidewalks in front of their property here yet are expected to allow "public camping" on them.
Personally, I'm not terribly interested in engaging in conversation about the constitutional aspects of a possible overturn of Johnson v Grants Pass in this particular venue with you, so if my comments make that particular conversation "really hard" for you to have, you might want to look for the discussion you want to have elsewhere.
Last edited by Metlakatla; 01-14-2024 at 05:43 PM..
Just to clarify (for me), I'm getting a little lost in the syntax here, are you saying you believe the Supreme Court will find homeless sweeps are not cruel and unusual?
I expect they will disagree with the 9th and say public bans/sweeps aren't cruel and unusual. Vagrancy was a crime at the time of the writing of the Constitution so I expect the "originalists" to state it wasn't the founders' intent to include the homeless.
Plus you have all of the other members of the public that have rights as well including handicapped people that can't navigate sidewalks with tents there, etc. We regulate public property all the time. You need a permit to hold an event. School parks can only be used when school is not in session. There is no target practice in public parks. All of these are potential safety issues that impact the greater public. A ban on camping in public spaces isn't any different.
What a twist. I don't believe I stated that ALL homeless people "harrass innocent bystanders." What I stated was that visiting a public park in my city comes with a virtual guarantee of being harassed by at least one homeless individual. The "housed" people aren't the ones running around screaming that they can't light their fentanyl pipes, setting up chop shops on the sidewalks, leaving their needles and other biowaste wherever they please, etc. As far as enforcement, harassment by a homeless person is indeed different from harassment by a "housed" person. As another poster stated, the homeless are given a pass unless their behavior becomes so extreme that even LE can't ignore it.
Your statement about poop and dogs makes no sense. We're legally obligated to clean up after our dogs; the homeless are apparently held to a lower standard, even though they have access to public restrooms in the parks they've taken over.
As far as your continued insistence that "you can easily walk past a sidewalk camp," you must have bigger sidewalks and/or smaller sidewalk camps where you live. And again, homeowners are legally obligated to maintain the sidewalks in front of their property here yet are expected to allow "public camping" on them.
Personally, I'm not terribly interested in engaging in conversation about the constitutional aspects of a possible overturn of Johnson v Grants Pass in this particular venue with you, so if my comments make that particular conversation "really hard" for you to have, you might want to look for the discussion you want to have elsewhere.
I think you're taking things personally that are not intended to be. And I'm fine if you don't want to talk to me about the constitutional aspects, just skip over my comments. But these threads are public. It's not a private conversation. By "really hard" I mean difficult to resolve, not that I'm in a bad mood or something. I'm just fine.
I expect they will disagree with the 9th and say public bans/sweeps aren't cruel and unusual. Vagrancy was a crime at the time of the writing of the Constitution so I expect the "originalists" to state it wasn't the founders' intent to include the homeless.
Plus you have all of the other members of the public that have rights as well including handicapped people that can't navigate sidewalks with tents there, etc. We regulate public property all the time. You need a permit to hold an event. School parks can only be used when school is not in session. There is no target practice in public parks. All of these are potential safety issues that impact the greater public. A ban on camping in public spaces isn't any different.
Okay, thanks for the clarification. I hope you're right that municipalities are given more leverage to restrict certain activities and some guidance on what sort of enforcement is possible.
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but maybe someone else will have the in-depth discussion you're trying to initiate. You might try posting a similar thread in the Politics and Other Controversies forum here, though I wouldn't count on finding any 8th amendment experts (or anyone who even knows what it is) in that mess.
Just saying it makes conversation about the legal and constitutional aspects really hard.
