The Supreme Court decided to follow up Boise’s homeless-camping case. What to know
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Jan. 12 that it would decide whether cities can limit and fine unhoused people camping in public places. The decision could change the way Boise and other cities are able to regulate camping in public spaces.
The case originated in Grants Pass, Oregon, a city of nearly 40,000 residents near the Oregon/California border. There, city officials restricted what items unhoused people could use to sleep on the streets, fining them for using camping paraphernalia like pillows and blankets, according to Oregon Capital Chronicle. The civil fines can cost several hundred dollars per violation.
The Grants Pass case follows a landmark court ruling five years ago about the same problem in Boise. That ruling limited the power of city police to stop camping by people experiencing homelessness.
A spokesperson for Boise Mayor Lauren McLean says the city obeys those limits and tries to help people who are homeless. But the head of one of Boise’s two homeless-shelter operators says police have found ways around the limits and ticket homeless people regularly.
The Boise case was decided by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Idaho and eight other Western states. The Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal, a victory for advocates of the homeless.
Now, though, the high court has turned more conservative, thanks to three appointments by former President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, homelessness in some major West Coast cities has become so big a problem that California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is hoping the court will side with Grants Pass in its effort to discourage homeless encampments.
How does Boise deal with camping by unhoused people?
In 2019, the 9th Circuit decided in Martin v. Boise that its states could not punish homeless people for sleeping outside when cities didn’t have adequate shelter space available.
Since that decision, the city of Boise and its Police Department have worked closely with shelters and do not issue citations to unhoused people sleeping outside unless there are safer alternatives for them in shelters, said Jill Youmans, the McLean spokesperson, in an email.
“Police officers work closely with area shelters and resource providers, with a focus on helping those experiencing homelessness,” Youmans said. “This practice, which existed before Martin v. Boise was finalized, means that first and foremost the BPD work with people to find safer alternatives for them before even considering a citation.”
Youmans said police communicate nightly with the city’s two homeless shelter providers, Interfaith Sanctuary and the Boise Rescue Mission.
But Boise police are not perfect in their efforts to help homeless people, said Jodi Peterson-Stigers, executive director of Interfaith Sanctuary.
“When our shelter is full, if they find someone sleeping outside, they get a ticket for something else like disorderly conduct, trespassing, things like that,” Peterson-Stigers said by phone. “They have found workarounds. Good data would be to actually come down and talk to our guests who stay out in the alley to find out how many tickets they’ve received. Because our homeless population gets tickets all the time.”
How is the Grants Pass case related to the Boise case?
In the 2019 Martin v. Boise case, the appeals court ruled that cities that punished homeless people for sleeping outside when there was nowhere else to go violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments.”
Since then, cities across the West have tried to pass restrictions on when and where unhoused people can camp, according to reporting from CalMatters. But this opened them up to lawsuits, which many California judges halted, reasoning that the Boise case prohibited these restrictions, CalMatters reported.
Grants Pass tried to get around the Boise case by setting rules that fined people for using blankets, pillows and cardboard boxes for protection from the elements while sleeping on the streets. The Boise case had not prohibited cities from passing regulations around camping; for example, they can regulate the times in which people can sleep outside, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
“The case is about what whether cities who have failed to meet the residents’ basic needs like housing or shelter are also allowed to punish people for sleeping outside using things like blankets or pillows,” said Jesse Rabinowitz, spokesperson for National Homelessness Law Center, in a phone interview with the Idaho Statesman.
What would a Supreme Court ruling mean for Boise?
That the Supreme Court took up the Grants Pass case concerns Peterson-Stigers. If the court rules in favor of the Oregon city, that could expose Boise’s unhoused residents to additional fines and tickets that could later lead to arrests and jail time.
“We do not have enough shelter beds within the city of Boise and in the Treasure Valley,” she said. “And the numbers for people who are unhoused are not getting smaller. We’re not building new shelters, and we’re not getting enough affordable housing up. How does this seem like a reasonable conversation to have right now?”
“They’re going to be written tickets, their items are going to be removed from them, and they’ll have nowhere to go,” she said. “They won’t have money to pay for their tickets. Now, they’ll have a warrant for their arrest, because they couldn’t show up for their court date, because they don’t have a home, or they have no transportation. And so now they’re in jail.”
Rabinowitz, too, hopes the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the homeless residents.
“I think that the Supreme Court justices, like most people, get that arresting or ticketing people for sleeping outside is cruel,” he said. “I wish I could predict what the court is going to do, but regardless, the decision will be tremendously impactful.”
Government officials in favor of ticketing homeless people for sleeping outside said if the Supreme Court upholds Grants Pass, it would prevent them from working on keeping homeless encampments clean and on other solutions to homelessness. Rabinowitz said that is not the case.
“It doesn’t say that cities can’t fund shelter or fund outreach or fund housing,” he said. “All it says is people can’t be punished for sleeping outside when they have no other choice.”
Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador said in an emailed letter that he is glad the Supreme Court will take up the case. He said the 9th Circuit decision in the Boise case “stripped states of their rights to regulate public spaces.”
“Finally, after a five-year experiment in social decay, the Supreme Court may give relief to many local governments seeking the tools to reclaim the livability and vitality of their public spaces,” Labrador wrote. “For too long, their residents have been forced to sidestep needles, garbage, and human waste that fill the streets and sidewalks, as businesses are shuttered and become vacant.”
What happens next?
The Supreme Court could hear arguments as early as this spring, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.
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