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US Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless camps
- sschueller 2y agoThis is insane, so you are at your lowest in life and it is now illegal for you to exist.
- asdff 2y agoI think its more about regulating where you can do certain things vs making it illegal to exist. For example its illegal to urinate and defecate in public despite these being automatic functions, sometimes involuntary and demanding release right then and there wherever you are. Despite this biological reality, we also understand that there are sanitation issues to allowing the body to relieve itself wherever it happens to be, so we have laws that criminalize public urination or defecation and attempt to direct this behavior towards areas where we can better handle that sanitation issue, and we establish guidelines of what that sanitary environment should be through the building code, and have our sewer departments expand capacity to meet this need.
- crooked-v 2y ago> regulating where you can do certain things If people who don't have a home can't sleep on public land, where can they sleep?
- asdff 2y agoIn a shelter. Most recent reports suggest that a lot of the new shelters cities have been building are not being used to their intended capacity. Probably because there isn't a way to implore people to go into shelter beyond offering it and trying to move them along from where they are presently camped using existing rulings (such as no camping near a school and other such laws certain cities have passed recently). If peoples choices are instead shelter in the provided shelter or spend a night in jail (which cities don't even have the space in their jails to jail every homeless person today fwiw), they might start filling these shelters, which might show the public that it is worth while to invest more money into building more of them considering they are getting used.Right now, its too easy to convince the public that homeless spending has been a waste of time and money on part of the poor utilization of present affordances. Sentiment on my local city subreddit about an upcoming homeless service tax program is pretty much in the gutter right now.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoThey can sleep on public land. Just not public land where it is illegal to sleep. This ruling also allows cities to set up designated camping grounds and banning camping elsewhere which courts ruled was banned in Chico. Why should we accept that the homeless can sleep wherever they like and ruin all the public land for the rest of us?
- pseudalopex 2y ago> They can sleep on public land. Just not public land where it is illegal to sleep. Those were the same in Grants Pass. And nearly 40% of cities according to a cited brief.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoThe world is much larger than Grants Pass. There is unincorporated land just outside city limits, and blm land not far
- alan-hn 2y agoSo where do you suggest homeless people sleep
- asdff 2y agoIn shelters the city state or federal government sets up. To me we are essentially hosting a concert with no bathrooms. The answer isn't to let people pee and poop without bathrooms at the concert, the answer is to police that behavior while also providing bathrooms.
- crooked-v 2y agoThe whole point of this judgment is that cities can now illegalize homelessness without needing to build any shelters.
- asdff 2y agoWell, most cities with a homeless crisis today don't exactly have the spare jail capacity to actually enforce anything like that, so I think giving some tools where you can be pragmatic about where an issue is presently taking place while you can attempt to solve it on the back end is useful. My city has already passed laws about homeless camps near dangerous intersections for pedestrians who have to step into the street to avoid the camp, laws about not camping near schools or childcare centers, and its done quite a bit to help the average pedestrian in the neighborhood as a result.
- crooked-v 2y agoI think the most likely "pragmatic tools" that will show up will amount to homeless people being told "take this bus ticket to NYC or San Francisco or we will make your life hell for the next year with maximally unpleasant prosecution".
- asdff 2y agoThat's already done to an extent. Other cities in socal have a bit of a history of dumping homeless people into LA city borders. This was just from this past week, the Burbank PD allegedly dumped someone and it was caught on video (1). https://abc7.com/post/los-angeles-demand-answers-homeless-dumping-after-video/14998745/ https://abc7.com/post/los-angeles-demand-answers-homeless-du...
- curtis3389 2y agoThis is quite horrifying, but not particularly surprising. Most Americans have dehumanized homeless people, because if we truly saw them as equal humans, we would have to acknowledge that we all exist in a system where our humanity is contingent on the contents of our bank account. Programmers today can feel the angst caused by this dehumanization when they look at LLMs generating code. We can see that our humanity could be ripped from us at any time.
- hindsightbias 2y ago> Programmers today Or they can just look out the window of the former SRO apartment they took over in the Tenderloin.
- jowdones 2y agoGood!
- notaustinpowers 2y agoIt's now, effectively, illegal to just exist as a homeless person. Sleeping in your car? Jail. Sleeping under a bridge? Jail. Sleeping on a park bench? Jail. Sleeping in the woods? Jail.
- sonofhans 2y ago“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
- jeffbee 2y agoThis is paraphrased unironically right there in the majority opinion. "The public-camping laws prohibit actions undertaken by any person, regardless of status."
- pandaman 2y agoYes. Why do many people quote it as if something profound here (there are at least half a dozen of instances of this quote by different authors and some just repeat it in multiple threads)? This is the essential rule of law: nobody is above it. It appears that people posting this quote believe that the law should be different for different people? I mean, the original author was a monarchist and did not believe a democracy was good or just so it makes sense. Are people repeating this also all monarchists who believe the law for different classes should be different or just made up by the Crown for each situation?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- underlipton 2y agoBecause a hypothetical opposite - “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to use money to improve their dwelling, to purchase unnecessary luxury goods, and to pay for basic goods a rate commensurate with their means” - does not exist. The laws that "nobody is above" punish poverty, but not wealth. That's the distinction.
- pandaman 2y agoFrom what I could understand from your message, you are saying that the law is designed to punish poverty and the actual actions (loitering, theft and harassment) are just excuses? E.g. in the topical case, people would be fine with the encampments on the streets and in the parks if they consisted of rich people? Like rich person shit on one's lawn won't bother anyone, rich people's blood encrusted needles are fine children toys and a rich person tent blocking right of way is an amusement to marvel at?
- crmd 2y agoAs is common, the article does not link to the actual opinion. Here it is: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
- wilg 2y agoDumb decision, but we really just gotta build more homes mainly. A good overview of why this is the best solution to homelessness: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-about https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything-you-think-you-know-...
- tomcam 2y agoWhy is it a dumb decision?
- delecti 2y agoIt makes it, not just de facto, but de jure illegal to be poor. If someone can't afford a home, where are they meant to go? Just fuck off and die?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- PessimalDecimal 2y agoWhat about going to a homeless shelter, or to a municipality that does allow homeless encampments?
- squidbeak 2y agoHomeless people don't tend to have the mobility you imagine.
- IncreasePosts 2y agoThere is a charity run homeless shelter in the town where they were camping on public grounds.
- jjk166 2y agoWhich requires people staying there to attend religious services.
- paxys 2y agoBig W for the prison industrial complex.
- araes 2y agoI'd check for an uptick in prison related stocks and commodities, except they're buried under the post-debate slump. Maybe in a few days. Supreme Court decisions probably take a few days to filter out to the somewhat less news obsessive parts of society.
- goodluckchuck 2y agoYes and no. They said it’s not cruel and unusual punishment to be fined / spend a few days in jail. The real issue should have been intent, but the litigants and lower courts didn’t base the case on lack of capacity to comply / lack of mens rea / etc. They wanted a precedent allowing for urban camping even if you’re not homeless.
- Terr_ 2y agoI'm not sure if the plaintiffs' arguments were quite that bad, since the ruling mentions that they raised questions of capacity and "involuntary" situations, ex: > Plaintiffs insist the Court should extend Robinson to prohibit the enforcement of laws that proscribe certain acts that are in some sense “involuntary,” because some homeless individuals cannot help but do what the law forbids. [...] this Court already rejected it in Powell v. Texas [where] a defendant who had been convicted under a Texas statute making it a crime to “ ‘get drunk or be found in a state of intoxication in any public place.’ ” [...] argued that his drunkenness was an “‘involuntary’” byproduct of his status as an alcoholic.
- throwup238 2y agoFrom the majority opinion page 20 [1]: > Under the city's laws, it makes no difference whether the charged defendant is currently a person experiencing homelessness, a backpacker on vacation, or a student who abandons his dorm room to camp out in protest on the lawn of a municipal building. The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread. [1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
- Terr_ 2y agoTo wit: > Held: The enforcement of generally applicable laws regulating camping on public property does not constitute “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoIn part because the Eighth Amendment “prohibits certain methods a government may impose after a criminal conviction, but it does not ‘impose [any] substantive limits on what conduct a state may criminalise.’”
- cvalka 2y agoExactly. The 8th amendment restricts the punishment and not the underlying crime.
- coolspot 2y agoHomeless need shelter and help. It is inhumane that we let them rot on the streets. City dwellers need safe and clean streets and public transportation. Kids should be able to walk to school by themselves. These two things don’t need to be in conflict.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> It is inhumane that we let them rot on the streets Agree. But is it cruel and unusual? The court says no.
- PessimalDecimal 2y agoThe court rules that it is not cruel or unusual to arrest and jail people for camping in public, right?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> court rules that it is not cruel or unusual to arrest and jail people for camping in public It rules that the Eighth Amendment doesn’t substantially restrict what constitutes a crime, just the punishment. (It restricts criminalising status. So the court mostly focussed on whether the law criminalises homelessness, versus specific actions, which it found it does not.)
- thfuran 2y agoThe court ruling was about charging them money for being left to rot on the street, not leaving them in the street in the first place.
- PheonixPharts 2y agoMany people misunderstand what this case was about. > Homeless need shelter and help. It is inhumane that we let them rot on the streets. The issue being argued was not that homeless should be able to camp where ever and whenever they want. This issue was that if you don't provide shelter then you cannot kick them out of public spaces. If that was the law, then it would mean you need to build shelters if you don't want homeless in the streets. What this new verdict means is: - You can forcibly remove homeless people who have nowhere else to go - Thus homelessness can be effectively illegal - The only realistic solutions now are: - Put the homeless in prisons - Move them to cities and towns that don't have the resources to remove them.
- kingofthehill98 2y agoCan't have a home if you don't have a job. Can't get a job if you're homeless. It's the year 2024 after the birth of Jesus Christ, mankind has produced more wealth and technology than we ever thought it was possible, meanwhile we're living this miserable life, working these shitty jobs, while less than 1% of the population has more money than they could ever spend. Capitalism should be left behind, we're ruining the only planet we have. It's a system with a critical bug deep in it's core and it'll never be fixed.
- tonetheman 2y ago[dead]
- CSMastermind 2y agoDiscussion from when the argument was being heard: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40107034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40107034
- dang 2y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: What the Supreme Court case on tent encampments could mean for homeless people - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40107034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40107034 - April 2024 (88 comments)
- nimbius 2y agoI feel like the outcome of this is unilaterally bad. Most homeless are elderly and mentally Ill. The solutions are institutionalization and retirement housing/pensions but no state did this after Reagan and instead made homelessness an issue to ignore. Faced with the ability to legally incarcerate nearly 600,000 people, states likely won't hesitate to do just that without a second thought. For a country that prides itself on freedom and liberty, having the largest prison population in the world is surely a damning indictment of the conviction.
- speeralbert 2y agoRe: "Most homeless are elderly and mentally ill." Mentally ill, yes. Elderly, no.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- canada_dry 2y ago> states likely won't hesitate to do just that Especially those that have for-profit prison system - which in some cases have state legislators as investors/stakeholders.
- dantheman 2y agoYou do realize that real problem is the prison guard union and public prisons right? Private prisons represent 8% of all prisoners...
- legitster 2y ago> Faced with the ability to legally incarcerate nearly 600,000 people, states likely won't hesitate to do just that without a second thought. Prisoners cost ~ $40k a year annually in taxes. It's actually cheaper to house them - so I don't think states are going to be gung-ho about doing either.
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- Mountain_Skies 2y agoThe Court didn't make it illegal for cities to provide services to the homeless. Some, many, (most?) simply find it easier to push homeless around between each other and off into the margins (outside of their municipal boundaries) instead of addressing the issue. The Court isn't a social services agency and rulings shouldn't be made on that basis. Cites, states, and even the federal government have the power to address homelessness. Using homeless camps as a perverse bottom tier safety net isn't a solution and is completely tangential to the legality of regulating their existence. I don't understand this notion that court rulings should be based on social policy instead of Constitutional law. Once again, governments are not being limited in their ability to go out and provide services.
- Ferret7446 2y agoProbably because it is easier than addressing the issue, since no one has ever really solved the problem of homeless throughout recorded history. Lots of people claim there are easy solutions, yet not one of them seems to actually work; homelessness exists in every major city today, even the ones where you don't see them as a tourist.
- pseudalopex 2y ago> The Court didn't make it illegal for cities to provide services to the homeless. Who claimed they did? The complaint I saw was they made it legal for cities not to provide services. > I don't understand this notion that court rulings should be based on social policy instead of Constitutional law. What is cruel and unusual punishment is a constitutional question.
- relaxing 2y agoGood news: our fundamental freedom to die in the streets has been preserved.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- WillPostForFood 2y agoThis is not about criminalizing homeless. This was San Francisco's position in their brief: To address the homelessness crisis.” San Francisco Brief 7. The city “uses enforcement of its laws prohibiting camping” not to criminalize homelessness, but “as one important tool among others to encourage individuals experiencing homelessness to accept services and to help ensure safe and accessible sidewalks and public spaces.”
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40820994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40820994
- jjk166 2y ago> Plaintiffs insist the Court should extend Robinson to prohibit the enforcement of laws that proscribe certain acts that are in some sense “involuntary,” because some homeless individuals cannot help but do what the law forbids. The Ninth Circuit pursued this line of thinking below and in Martin, but this Court already rejected it in Powell v. Texas. In Powell, the Court confronted a defendant who had been convicted under a Texas statute making it a crime to “get drunk or be found in a state of intoxication in any public place.” Like the plaintiffs here, Powell argued that his drunkenness was an “involuntary” byproduct of his status as an alcoholic. The Court did not agree that Texas’s law effectively criminalized Powell’s status as an alcoholic... This case is no different. If you told me this quote was from an Onion article, I'd say "well obviously."
- jl6 2y agoWhat's that story where they solved the problem of poor people stepping on the property of landowners, by giving them helium balloon grants?
- legitster 2y ago*Correction: the cities can ban camps. It would still be a violation to ban "homeless" camps, and the decision was very clear that homelessness is a protected status, but just because you have a protected status does not mean you get to break laws that do not target you. "Under the city’s laws, it makes no difference whether the charged defendant is homeless, a backpacker on vacation passing through town, or a student who abandons his dorm room to camp out in protest on the lawn of a municipal building."
- crooked-v 2y agoI really don't see the mens rea of someone sleeping outside because they have no where else to sleep instead.
- Ferret7446 2y agoThere is no mens rea needed. As it is said, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."
- Terr_ 2y agoIANAL but I think that's confusing mens rea with something else more like malice. If someone sees a sign says "Camping prohibited", and they decide to camp there anyway, that's mens rea. It doesn't depend on whether they had other options, or whether they desired to purposefully harm others, or whether they were very sure they'd be able to avoid harming the grass, etc.
- SeanAnderson 2y agoI don't really understand how it could be any other way. If you envision a hypothetical city which has too many unhoused persons relative to the city's financial ability to support those people - then what? The unhoused just die in the street unable to be moved somewhere that has sufficient resources to support them? I get that there's a lot more nuance to this problem and that the ruling can be abused/used to enforce NIMBYism/jail the unhoused, but, fundamentally, cities have to have the ability to move citizens because the city is aware of its own financial ability to provide support, but the citizens within are allowed to be uninformed.
- pseudalopex 2y agoWhat cities say they have the resources to support other cities' homeless people?
- SeanAnderson 2y agoOn some level, the answer is likely none because there's not much in it for them. That said, cities declare themselves as "sanctuary cities" well enough so it's not unreasonable to think this could be extended - although immigrants provide more economic benefits than the unhoused. Still, it doesn't have to be ungrounded in numbers. Take GDP per capita for a city, normalize it by cost of living, and pass a federal law saying cities are only required to support an unhoused population that represents a percentage of the normalized cost burden. Cities already bus unhoused people to other cities to try and shift the burden of responsibility. We could at least orchestrate the process in a way that fairly divides the economic cost. As it stands, it's just whoever acts faster and with fewer morals benefits and relatively poor areas with desirable outdoor weather shoulder the burden.
- corinroyal 2y agoIt's a myth that homeless people move to better cities. If we could do that, we wouldn't be homeless. People tend to be homeless near the last place they were housed.
- banish-m4 2y agoI was technically homeless for 9 years. This is the further erosion of social safety nets and criminalization of poverty while dodging the responsibility of not helping people who need it.
- skeledrew 2y agoSo let me get this straight... People unable to afford a home, with no communal shelter, are fined for making alternate arrangements. Of course, given that they're already in a bad financial situation, they won't be able to pay the fines. So it's jail time. I guess that's a kind of shelter, but then what happens when the jails become full? Where do the extras go then? And what happens to those released with fresh marks on their record and still no way to afford anything? Maybe start culling the flock? I'm seeing no path forward where any of this makes sense.
- snypher 2y agoUnfortunately the way they want this to work is that the jails never becomes full and constantly expand instead.
- skeledrew 2y agoIn that case, having a record may become more or less normalized it seems. If the conditions are acceptable, then the jails will just become like regular shelters. The only downside is a potential employer would have access to the knowledge that someone got to the point of using one.
- giraffe_lady 2y ago[flagged]
- ehvatum 2y ago[flagged]
- cminusminus 2y agoThis really makes me sad. I used to struggle with housing and spent time living out of my car. I got lucky and was able to work my way into a tech career over a decade, but it feels like criminalization of hardship is just pulling the rug out from under people that really just need someone to care.