The justices on Monday will consider a challenge to rulings from a California-based appeals court that found punishing people for sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.
A political cross section of officials in the West and California, home to nearly one-third of the nation’s homeless population, argue those decisions have restricted them from “common sense” measures intended to keep homeless encampments from taking over public parks and sidewalks.
Advocacy groups say the decisions provide essential legal protections, especially with an increasing number of people forced to sleep outdoors as the cost of housing soars.
The case before the Supreme Court comes from Grants Pass, a small city nestled in the mountains of southern Oregon, where rents are rising and there is just one overnight shelter for adults. As a growing number of tents clustered its parks, the city banned camping and set $295 fines for people sleeping there.
The real shit sandwich here is that it’s not even fining homeless people for “illegal camping”, it’s fining them for “illegal camping” while there’s not adequate shelter available. Shelters suck ass, but the first here is that the city hasn’t even done the bare minimum to band-aid the issue before they started trying to use cops to cudgel the homeless for just existing.