SCOTUS to hear Johnson v Grants Pass (homeless camping in public spaces) (squatters, house)

[Metlakatla]

At the middle of this is whether the homeless have the right to camp on public property.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/u...ps-oregon.html

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a challenge to cities using local ordinances to enforce bans on public camping, a case that could reshape policy on homelessness for years to come.

The case stems from a lawsuit challenging local laws in Oregon that restrict sleeping and camping in public spaces, including sidewalks, streets and city parks. At issue is whether those rules violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. A ruling could help determine how states, particularly those in the West, grapple with a rising homelessness crisis.

This could affect all states under the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit Court.

[Jessie Mitchell]

Really interested to see how this works out.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

At the middle of this is whether the homeless have the right to camp on public property.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/u...ps-oregon.html



This could affect all states under the jurisdiction of the 9th Circuit Court.

However the court rules, the homeless aren't going anywhere.

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

However the court rules, the homeless aren't going anywhere.

No, but they won't be going everywhere, either. Personally, I'm looking forward to maybe being able to use a public park without being accosted by some fentanyl addict screaming that it's too windy for him to light his pipe — and other scenarios.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

No, but they won't be going everywhere, either. Personally, I'm looking forward to maybe being able to use a public park without being accosted by some fentanyl addict screaming that it's too windy for him to light his pipe — and other scenarios.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen. Making homelessness illegal is not going to solve the problem.

[Metlakatla]

I'm not sure many people care anymore about "solving the problem;" they just want to be able to use their local public spaces without having to wear hazmat. The current approach, btw, is falling quite short of "soliving the problem."

[Jessie Mitchell]

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.

[Igor Blevin]

It is amazing how you can be cited for loitering where posted signs prohibit it, but if you set up a crack house in a tent on the sidwalk outside a grade school, you have permanent legal squatters rights.

What is wrong with this picture?

Here is hoping the weaker of Trump's SCOTUS judges will do the right thing, and recognize that no citizen or non-citizen has the lgal "right" to perpetually squat on public land paid for with public tax dollars and designated for public use by the general public. Not parks. Not schools. Not sidewalks.

[Jessie Mitchell]

Originally Posted by Igor Blevin

Here is hoping the weaker of Trump's SCOTUS judges will do the right thing, and recognize that no citizen or non-citizen has the lgal "right" to perpetually squat on public land paid for with public tax dollars and designated for public use by the general public. Not parks. Not schools. Not sidewalks.

But this way of looking at the legal question leaves out the factor that the homeless squatters are also "the public". It's why it's such a tangled question. And if someone has put up a tent on a sidewalk, and other people can just walk by the tent, then that's just the squatter and the walker using the space in a different way, both as members of the public.

Don't misunderstand me, I am not making a case for the squatter (which is actually an incorrect term, as a squatter is a person occupying private property without permission). I dislike very much homeless people camping on streets, sidewalks and public parks. The question before the court though has to be settled based on law, consistently applied without regard to what people like or dislike. And especially interesting that the specific metric is "cruel and unusual punishment."

[oregonwoodsmoke]

The 9th circuit court already ruled on this. Their ruling was that a city has to allow it only if they are not providing alternative places for the homeless to camp.

You know that the actual homeless are not bringing this suit to court.