Supreme Court Case Reminds LA Of Hard Lessons On Homelessness

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday for a major homelessness case that could have consequences for Los Angeles and other West Coast cities and how they enforce laws for camping in public spaces.

The case, Johnson v. Grants Pass, challenges ordinances passed by the southern Oregon city that bans people from camping on sidewalks, streets, and parks, when they have nowhere else to go. Violators face escalating civil fines or jail time.

The high court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, will decide if that's a violation of the 8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. They’re expected to hand down a ruling by the end of June.

What L.A. service providers say

Shawn Morrissey, the vice president of advocacy and community engagement for Union Station Homeless Services, told LAist that punishing people for basically trying to live is harmful and creates even more homelessness.

He echoed Justice Elena Kagan’s comparison during oral arguments of sleeping in public to “breathing in public” for people who don’t have a place to go.

“It sounds like banishment from the planet, basically,” Morrissey said. “If you're not allowed to sleep, you're basically not being allowed to live.”

Morrissey said we tend to blame people who are experiencing the problem — a population that is going through the hardest time in their lives — instead of looking at the fractured systems that got us here.

He said the city had criminalized small infractions, like jaywalking, that entangled people in the justice system and created more harm in their lives.

“It's hard enough to jump through those hoops if you're in your own home and stable, but when you're living outside, it's nearly impossible to jump through those hoops, which then leads to more fines and more warrants,” Morrissey said.

But what about encampments? 

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ flagship homelessness program, Inside Safe, has been touted as a success to transitioning people living on the streets into housing and would likely not be affected by the court’s ruling.

The case is focused on camping, not encampments, which Inside Safe addresses and works to prevent.

“This case is only about the punishments,” Ed Johnson, the director of litigation at the Oregon Law Center and lead counsel for the unhoused people who filed the lawsuit in 2018, told LAist. “It's about the fines, and the tickets, and the arrests, and the jail, and how that implicates the cruel and unusual punishments clause of the 8th Amendment. It's not about sweeps in Oregon.”

Los Angeles also submitted an amicus brief to the case, writing that the city does not support efforts to criminalize involuntary homelessness, but it does have a paramount interest in its ability to protect public health and safety.

Attorneys in L.A. are watching 

Carol Sobel, a civil rights attorney who works with Southern California’s unhoused community and also submitted an amicus brief in the case, told LAist that the problem is only going to get worse as L.A.’s population gets older.

“If the numbers are doubling and tripling, what you're doing is not working, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that there's got to be something else,” she said. “How do you move forward if you don't even know what happened in the rearview mirror?”

Sobel noted than an estimated 50% to 75% of the women who are unhoused are victims of domestic violence or sexual assault, and yet we “continue to blame people for their status.”

Shayla Myers, a senior attorney for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles who’s involved with a few separate homelessness cases in the city, told LAist that the issue at the center of this is narrow, and there are so many tools jurisdictions have to address the homelessness crisis.

“People have been fighting this issue for a very long time and politicians have said repeatedly, and on the record, they don't believe in criminalization of homelessness, which Grants Pass clearly does,” she said. “If we take those politicians at their word, they won't pass a city-wide anti-camping ordinance in Los Angeles, even if they could.”

But Myers pointed out that lots of other cities will, a sentiment Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed concerned with during oral arguments.

“Where do we put them if every city, every village, every town lacks compassion and passes a law identical to this,” Sotomayor asked the attorney representing Grants Pass. “Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves not sleeping?”

But the high court didn’t seem too eager to get involved, with Chief Justice John Roberts pointing out that each area has different priorities.

“Do you build the homeless shelter or you take care of the lead pipes,” Roberts asked. “Which one do you prioritize? Why would you think that these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?”

What attorneys in the case say

Johnson said he was impressed with the court’s engagement during oral arguments.

“I mean, we were supposed to be there an hour,” he said. “We were there two and a half hours, and it seemed like, to me, that the court was really well versed on the factual record of the case.”

Johnson said there’s no doubt that Los Angeles is ground zero for the homelessness crisis in the United States, but the city is a stark example of how this kind of punishment and criminalization is not only not a solution, but will make matters worse.

“If you want to come up with a really expensive way to make sure that fewer people can escape homelessness, making it illegal for them to, you know, survive and do the things that you have to do when you're living outside is a sure way to do it,” he said.

Theane D. Evangelis, the attorney representing the city of Grants Pass, didn’t immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.