Paul Blumenthal is a senior reporter with the HuffPost Politics team based in Washington, D.C. He covers courts, elections, political economy and political history.
In 2013, the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, population about 40,000, sought to do something about the growing presence of homeless encampments on public property. The City Council decided to heavily enforce laws prohibiting homeless people from sleeping anywhere at any time by issuing significant, escalatory fines. The intent was to drive the homeless population out of town.
These states and cities claim that the 9th Circuit’s varying interpretations of Martin have tied their hands when it comes to addressing encampments on public property even as the homeless population hasAdvocates for homeless people argue that a ruling in favor of Grants Pass would effectively make being homeless illegal. They point to the sweeping nature of Grants Pass’s anti-camping ordinances, which count the possession of a blanket as illegal bedding material, a fineable civil offense.
The 9th Circuit, in the Martin decision, found that the same rule applies to homeless people: They are a distinct class that cannot be targeted by laws that make their very existence, living in a community without shelter, illegal. Municipalities are, therefore, not allowed to forbid sleeping outside in all places at all times and cannot punish homeless people for sleeping outside unless there are shelter beds available and they refuse to use them.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants the U.S. Supreme Court to give cities and states greater leeway to remove encampments of homeless people by limiting the scope of decisions made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.
Without the protections afforded by the 9th Circuit’s decisions in Martin and Grants Pass, the city’s homeless people would be effectively criminalized, potentially out of existence, as they are forced to move on. “By penalizing homelessness, Grants Pass is effectively asking women to choose their cruel and usual punishment: victimhood of violence or jail,” thethat the physical or sexual abuse they suffered at home or that they fear suffering if they return as their reason for being homeless.Were the Supreme Court to overrule the 9th Circuit’s decisions in Martin and Grants Pass it would have grave consequences for the nation’s growing population of homeless people, advocates argue.
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