Yves here. This post givens some depressing examples draconian new anti-homeless ordinances and laws instituted in the wake of the Supreme Court Grants Pass ruling, which allows for homelessness to be criminalized. Some churches are defying these rules even though municipalities have tried to extend their reach to them.
This article sensibly argues for rental and other forms of housing support. However, with the US so long and resolutely being in the business of hating the poor, these punitive policies are likely to continue even when the citizens generally start paying the price via increases in communicable diseases like antibiotic resistant tuberculosis.
By Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, Michigan State University. Originally published at The Conversation
Homelessness is a rare issue in American politics that does not cut neatly along party or ideological lines. It can be hard to predict who will support or oppose measures to expand affordable housing and services for people without homes.
San Francisco, for example – one of the most progressive U.S. cities – has adopted numerous policies that make it easy for opponents to slow or block proposed housing projects. In contrast, churches of many denominations across the U.S. have challenged local zoning ordinances by providing food and shelter to people without homes, even when city laws and codes ban sleeping or eating in areas where the churches are located.
The Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson allows cities to penalize individuals for sleeping in public spaces even when no shelter is available. It overturned the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ previous decision that anti-camping ordinances violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
California is home to half the nation’s homeless population, but not all officials there welcomed the Grants Pass ruling.
I am a researcher specializing in homelessness, and signed an amicus brief submitted by 57 social scientists in the Grants Pass case, supporting plaintiffs who sued on behalf of homeless people living in the Oregon city of Grants Pass. In my view, the outcome of the court’s ruling is both predictable and deeply troubling. Many U.S. cities now are moving aggressively to clear homeless encampments, often without providing sufficient shelter or support to the people they are displacing.
Cities Take Action
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in July that exemplifies this shift by calling for cities to “humanely remove encampments from public spaces.” This approach, which prioritizes clearing visible homelessness over addressing a systemic lack of housing options, often leads to forced displacement that makes people without housing more likely to be arrested and experience increased instability and trauma.
Newsom’s order opened the door for more punitive actions across the state. The San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors is considering revisions to a local camping ordinance that would ban sleeping in a tent, sleeping bag or vehicle for over 60 minutes, and would forbid people from sleeping within 300 feet of a public location where they had slept in the past 24 hours.
The city of Fresno recently banned public camping at any time and in any location, regardless of whether shelter is available. The new law bans sleeping or camping at any entrance to public or private property along a public sidewalk.
It also prohibits sitting, lying down, sleeping or camping on “sensitive use” properties, including schools, child care facilities, parks, libraries, government buildings, warming or cooling centers and existing homeless shelters. Violations are punishable by up to a year in jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.
Other jurisdictions are following California’s lead. Grand Rapids, Michigan, has enacted new laws to criminalize activities associated with homelessness, such as loitering and storing unattended personal property. In Illinois, a government lobbying association drafted a model camping ban that enforces fines for initial violations and stricter penalties, including possible jail time, for repeat offenses. Several Illinois cities have adopted the ordinance.
Nearly three dozen new state laws in Florida on Oct. 1st, including regulations that limit where homeless individuals can sleep. #EndHomelessness https://t.co/0GP3wrtCwp
— National Coalition for the Homeless (@NationalHomeles) September 24, 2024
Ironically, Grants Pass has not been able to clear its homeless encampments because of a law Oregon enacted in 2021. This measure allows local governments to enact restrictions on sleeping on public property, such as time, place and manner, as long as they are “objectively reasonable.” It requires communities to consider local ordinances in the context of available shelter services and public space.
This approach, which strikes a balance between public concerns and the needs of people who are homeless, prevents the kind of punitive measures that the Supreme Court ruling now permits elsewhere.
The Housing First Approach
Many Americans are frustrated by the homelessness crisis. In their view, cities have made little progress on this issue despite substantial investments.
However, research overwhelmingly shows that criminalizing homelessness perpetuates the problem. It creates a cycle of arrest, incarceration and release, without addressing root causes, such as economic inequality, inadequate mental health and addiction services and a lack of affordable housing. People without housing are at risk of early death from violent injuries, substance abuse or preventable diseases.
In my view, supportive Housing First approaches are more effective than punitive bans. Housing First is a strategy that quickly provides permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, without requiring them to be sober, employed or in treatment for mental health disorders.
This approach recognizes stable housing as a basic human right and a foundation for addressing other challenges that people without homes often face. By meeting their immediate need for housing, it helps people recover from the stress of being homeless and leads to better long-term results. Research shows that Housing First programs are more effective and cost-efficient than requiring treatment for issues such as addiction as a condition for housing.
Critics say that Housing First is expensive and that providing housing without mandatory support services leads to inefficient use of funds. Some studies highlight challenges in ensuring that services match individual needs. Another critique calls Housing First a “one-size-fits-all” solution that may not adequately address the homeless population’s diverse needs.
Rental Access and Assistance
In 2024, the federal government awarded US$3.16 billion to communities nationwide through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care program, the largest investment toward ending homelessness in U.S. history.
This HUD program provides funding and support to local communities to coordinate efforts aimed at ending homelessness, such as providing rapid rehousing and support services to homeless people. This is a crisis-response strategy designed to minimize trauma associated with living on the street by moving people into housing as quickly as possible.
Making a serious and lasting dent in this problem will require scaling up proven solutions, such as rental assistance and access to affordable rental housing. A study published by HUD in 2016 found that giving homeless families permanent housing subsidies, such as housing choice vouchers, was the most effective way to ensure long-term housing stability.
Housing choice vouchers cover most of a family’s rent costs, leaving families to pay about 30% of their income on housing, with no time limit as long as participants follow program rules. The HUD study found that compared with other short-term programs, this approach improved participants’ mental health, stabilized families, supported child development and reduced the likelihood of participants becoming homeless again.
Homeless encampments raise legitimate public concerns about health and safety, including the welfare of people living in the camps. But clearing them and banning public camping won’t solve homelessness. As I see it, providing permanent housing subsidies, expanding access to affordable housing and implementing Housing First approaches, paired with supportive services, is a more effective and humane approach.
I’m sorry but arguing for total lawlessness in democrat run cities is not a good strategy. After watching the mayor and city council in austin totally destroy the city with insane policies that push real estate prices sky high, while simultaneously rounding up people living in the creeks and greenbelts and dumping them under all the highway overpasses in the city (under the guise of ‘you can’t crimialize homelessness!!!!!!!11’), I cheer the supreme court for finally bringing sanity back to the discussion. I’ve watch people go to these dangerous encampments and offer people housing. Almost none of them take the housing. What democrats seem to completely misunderstand is that there’s a large population in america that wants to live on the street and do meth/crack/fentenyl until they die. And it can take over a decade for these people to finally die, having terrorized the community they camp in all those years, day after day. And helping these people (homelessness activists and non profits that need large crouds of homeless people looking extremely desperate so they can get more donations) make bigger and bigger dangerous encampments, refusing to enforce the law when these people attack others and terrorize the community should be and now rightly is considered criminal. It would be great if there was more housing available at lower prices, but the same people creating these huge hazardous camps are the same people running up housing prices. Bust up the dangerous encampments. It’s far past time we stop letting bleeding heart liberals terrorize everyone else. Homelessness needs to end, but I would argue stopping the lazy democrats from creating huge, dangerous encampments is a higher priority. Most cities have zero large encampments, stop the activists and non profits from concentrating them all in large camps in democrat cities. Encampment problem solved. Now we can all stop worrying about being attacked at the stop light on the way home from the grocery store, stop worrying about the weird neighbors that welcome dangerous criminals taking over a community, and start working on putting all the real estate industry people in jail or worse.
One other thing, housing first is a terrible, horrible idea. What it means is that you are going to have to build or find housing somewhere where numerous people with very serious drug addiction problems are all going to live together. It turns into pure hell. These people know they can’t be kicked out of their housing, and they won’t be held responsible if they break the law. The libs will scream about meth addiction being a symptom of homelessness, when a lot of the time, it’s the other way around. If you happen to own or rent near one of these places, you live in hell. People trying to open your door at all hours, looking in your windows, stealing anything that isn’t welded down, and that’s all the minor things. Once one of these people decides they don’t like you, they can terrorize you all day and night indefinitely. Housing first is a dangerous mistake. People need to be help accountable.
Quick search gives that 15 million homes are vacant in the US, mostly rentals. Less than a million people are homeless in the US.
We also know that landlords are collaborating to keep prices up, through apps.
A part of the homeless may primarily need help to function, but step one looks to be to use the empty homes to house the homeless. This can be done in various ways, but preventing the hoarding of empty homes to push up the price needs to be adressed if there is a political will to solve this problem. Since this is rather obvoius, I suspect that there isn’t a political will to solve this.