The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled 6-3 on the contentious Grants Pass, Oregon, case that placing restrictions on unhoused people and where they can sleep is not “cruel and unusual” criminalization of homelessness.
The decision is being supported by city leaders in San Francisco that have decried the restrictions placed on them regarding encampments, but is being excoriated by the American Civil Liberties Union and advocates for the unhoused.
The court determined that it was constitutional to criminalize sleeping on city streets, even if there was no alternative place offered by the city for the person to go to sleep.
The case has been closely watched in San Francisco because of the city’s highly visible homeless population as well as the injunction preventing the city from clearing encampments unless it has first made a genuine offer of shelter that is declined by the people being displaced.
The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office on Friday agreed that the decision has “significant implications” for the city.
“San Francisco will continue to take a compassionate, services-first approach to addressing our homelessness crisis,” said the City Attorney’s Office. “It will take time to analyze this decision and chart a path forward to change policies on the ground and ensure our litigation catches up with the Supreme Court’s decision today.”
Litigants on both sides of the case — the advocacy group Coalition on Homelessness and the city of San Francisco — filed amicus or “friend of the court” briefs in the high court advocating their respective positions.
“The solution is, and has always been, safe and affordable housing. But instead of tackling root causes, elected leaders have chosen to penalize residents who have nowhere else to go,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness.
Other groups like the ACLU of Northern California decried the ruling and cited San Francisco’s ordinance that requires the city to offer shelter before clearing an encampment.
“Today’s shameful decision guts a key civil rights protection for unhoused people, but it will not derail our lawsuit against San Francisco, which has policies and an ordinance requiring the city to offer shelter before clearing encampments,” said John Do, senior attorney at the ACLU of Northern California.
Meanwhile, San Francisco Mayor London Breed praised the court’s decision.
“This decision by the Supreme Court will help cities like San Francisco manage our public spaces more effectively and efficiently,” she said in a statement released by her office Friday, adding that her administration has made “significant investments in shelter and housing.”
“But too often these offers are rejected, and we need to be able to enforce our laws, especially to prevent long-term encampments,” she said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom also weighed in on the decision on Friday.
“This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common-sense measures to protect the safety and wellbeing of our communities,” he said in a statement.
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