On April 22, our country’s highest court will take verbal arguments on the most significant court case to affect homelessness in 40 years, Grants Pass v Johnson.
Grants Pass, a small city in Oregon, like too many other American cities, started experiencing growing pains as cost of living outpaced wages and more and more people began to enter homelessness. With a one percent vacancy rate and half of renters struggling to afford their rent, the only emergency option in the city is a faith-based homeless shelter that actually requires guests to pay $100/month to live on site. With scarce options for someone experiencing a housing crisis, Grants Pass began to see more and more people living outdoors.
The solution? Impose a city ordinance issuing a $300 fine to anyone using a blanket or even cardboard on public property.
Effectively outlawing the involuntary and life-sustaining act of sleeping, this ordinance directly targeted anyone experiencing homelessness who was sleeping outdoors in public spaces.
To challenge this ordinance, in 2018 Grants Pass, Oregon v Gloria Johnson was filed. Gloria Johnson, then homeless with her dog, was unable to seek shelter where pets were not allowed. Her dog helped her sleep and cope with her PTSD, per court records, so she had no alternative but to exist outside. Six years ago, courts ruled on Gloria’s behalf, upholding the unconstitutionality of penalizing someone experiencing homelessness in Grants Pass where there are insufficient shelter and permanent housing options. This decision was later upheld by the 9th circuit court of appeals, however, last year multiple entities petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to review this case. To many’s surprise, SCOTUS announced in January that they agreed to hear it.
Since then, entities on both “sides” of the arc of justice have been filing what are known as amicus, or friends of the court, briefs. Those who insist that we need laws that promote the ability to fine, cite, and arrest folks sleeping on public property filed many briefs that, upon review, were lacking of any expertise and devoid of any compassion. Their testimonies can be summarized as “ homeless people are dirty, dangerous, use drugs, and refuse to go to shelters” and “the only way we can respond to homelessness is with fines, citations, and jail time,” nevermind what actually happens to someone after the fact.
Advocates, activists, faith leaders, direct service organizations, friends with lived experience, social scientists, policy experts, and countless attorneys submitted over 40 briefs documenting decades of research about how housing first models successfully end homelessness, how trauma informed care equips communities with compassionate and evidence based tools to connect people with resources, and how carceral responses to homelessness constitute a form of cruel and unusual punishment. Arguably most powerful though, were the included vignettes of real people and their very real stories about how criminalization actually impeded their ability to obtain a roof over their head.
Lindsey Krinks, co-founder of Open Table Nashville, recounted a story of her friend “Alabama” that was included in one such brief: “Alabama had experienced homelessness for nearly 20 years and had been hit by a car. Because he had steel rods in both of his legs, he used a shopping cart to hobble around. He slept outside because he lived on the other side of town from the shelter and also wasn’t allowed to take his cart in to help him walk. Alabama had been arrested 198 times and had over 250 charges for petty offenses like ‘obstructing the passageway’ which made it almost impossible for him to get into housing. When Lindsey started working to get him into housing, she had a difficult time finding him for his housing appointments because he was arrested so often, sometimes multiple times a week. He was also in and out of the hospital. Lindsey made him a T-shirt that said “Please do not arrest me” on the front, and ‘My outreach worker is working on my housing’ on the back. She was eventually able to help him stay out of jail long enough to get Alabama into housing, and after he was in his own place, he had no encounters with the police, no citations or arrests, and was able to stay out of the hospital.”
In our hearts, through research, and honestly even through common sense, we know that housing ends homelessness, but now our country’s highest court will weigh in. This court case will determine if communities across the United States can enforce current vagrancy-type laws, like Tennessee’s own 2022 felony camping ban. It also has the potential to usher in a frightening new wave of increased efforts to criminalize homelessness and cement into law the ability to respond to our housing crisis with these ineffective and punitive approaches.
“If we’re going to fail at providing people housing, if we’re going to fail at providing people shelter…are we also going to say they can’t use a blanket and pillow?” posed Communications and Campaign Director, Jesse Rabinowitz, with the National Homelessness Law Center when talking about this case.
On April 22, SCOTUS will take verbal arguments and is expected to make a ruling by the end of June.