FILE - Cassy Leach, a nurse who leads a group of volunteers who provide food, medical care and other basic goods to the hundreds of homeless people living in parks, talks to Kimberly Marie, who is homeless and camping in Fruitdale Park, on March 21, 2024, in Grants Pass, Ore. On Friday, June 28, the Supreme Court ruled that cities can enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outdoors in areas where shelter space is lacking.
Jenny Kane / AP
In April, U.S. Supreme Court justices heard arguments in one of the most widely watched cases out of Oregon in recent memory. The question at the heart of Grants Pass v. Johnson was whether cities can regulate where and when people can sleep outside, especially if there isn’t shelter space available.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had held that the city’s ordinance was in violation of the basic principle established in Martin v. Boise from 2018: “A person cannot be prosecuted for involuntary conduct if it is an unavoidable consequence of one’s status.”
But on Friday the Supreme Court issued its ruling siding with Grants Pass, saying that it is not cruel or unusual punishment to penalize people for living outdoors even if they have nowhere else to go.
We get reaction and analysis from Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol and Sara Rankin, associate professor at Seattle University School of Law and director of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project.
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