1y ago

Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless people sleeping outside, even when shelter space is lacking

www.pbs.org

The Oregon case decided Friday is the most significant to come before the high court in decades on the issue and comes as a rising number of people in the U.S. are without a permanent place to live.

Housing Bubble 2: Return of the Ugly @lemmy.world

SeattleRain @lemmy.world

1y ago

Crime wave incoming

www.pbs.org /newshour/politics/supreme-court-allows-cities-to-ban-homeless-people-sleeping-outside-even-when-shelter-space-is-lacking

BrainWorms @lemm.ee

DeadWorld @lemm.ee

1y ago

Supreme Court allows cities to ban homeless people sleeping outside, even when shelter space is lacking

www.pbs.org /newshour/politics/supreme-court-allows-cities-to-ban-homeless-people-sleeping-outside-even-when-shelter-space-is-lacking

104 comments

In true American fashion dating all the way back to its founding, you only matter if you own property.
- Seems that way. Empowering local governments to determine legality will inevitably allow NIMBY to criminalize homelessness across the nation, with each city pointing fingers as the next.
- What was their reason for this decision? Did they even give one. It's time we remove the Supreme Court from office and put them in the street.
  
  They post all their reasonings for every opinion on supremecourt.gov
  In this case the tldr is the 8th amendment is concerned with the method or kind of punishment. And here it's a limited fine for 1st time offenders, a court order prohibiting camping in parks, then to a max of 30 days in jail for people who violate that order.
  Here's the link to the full text: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
  
  The real reason is that conservative ideology dictates that society will have winners and losers who end up in the correct spot in the heirarchy if society doesn't interfere with the natural sorting.
  So it follows that homeless people don't deserve a "handout" or a leg-up just because they squandered their opportunities.
  Leftists think that an ideology follows from a moral interrogation of the world as it should be, whereas reactionaries think the highest good is done by ensuring that people are in their correct spot in the heirarchy in relation to others; since some people are inevitably going to be homeless, there isn't much to be done about it and the leftists complaining about it are just virtue signaling to get votes.
  Their justification is irrelevant once you realize the actual ideological reasoning.
  Edit: I'm confused by the downvotes. Anyone want to tell me how I'm wrong? This isn't my ideology, but I think it's useful to understand your opposition on more than a cartoon-villain level, especially since they are so effective at selling their ideas to low-information voters.
  
  I'm certain someone offered them a gratuity
  
  What was their reason for this decision?
  Officially? Something mundane, I'm sure. Unofficially and actually? The "labor shortage" we have (which is actually people being reasonably unwilling to work abusive body-destroying soul-crushing senselessly-cruel jobs for less than poverty-level wages) is causing economic damage that's visible in their portfolios, and a new massive infusion of slave labor (because prisoners can legally be used as slaves) that have no legal means to resist abuse and exploitation would fix that situation right up.
  Anyone who can't keep up with the numerous corporate money vacuums in their lives (rent, rent increases, bills, bill increases, taxes, more taxes, more bill increases, grocery cost increases, more utility increases, more more more) will become homeless, and the homeless will serve as our new pool of slave labor for dirt cheap. Keep up, hustle harder, pay more, pay faster, or be put in chains and tortured in solitary confinement with moldy nutriloaf until you agree to work to death for nothing.
  This conservative wet dream is coming unless we collectively pull our heads out of our asses.
"That includes California, which is home to one-third of the country’s homeless population."
Why do these statements never follow immediately stating that California is also 10% of the ENTIRE country's population and it's where all of the livable weather is if you have no option but to sleep outside. Of course a lot of them are in California. We need a new deal.
- Eh, it’s not just the weather. It’s cities in general. Look at Philly. Winter sucks there but still tons of homeless.
  
  California, outside be mountains, doesn’t really get winters. It’s an attractive place and people will do train hopping to get there.
  
  Denver has plenty of homeless too, but come on. It's nowhere near California-levels.
- I see people living homeless outside in New England daily, even in the winter. That discrepancy has to be fed by more than just weather.
  
  What discrepancy?
  Are you implying that the presence of any homeless people in New England invalidates the idea that consistently favorable weather leads to a higher ratio of homeless people living in an area?
  Probably also matters long term vs short term. When someone first becomes homeless, it usually happens where they were already living regardless of the weather. Over time, people may move to where it is more comfortable to sleep outside.
  So, all cities have new homeless people plus some that just never leave. And then warm areas have new homeless people plus the long term homeless people who risked traveling to get to warmer temperatures.
  
  Isn't the average home price in California more than double the average of New England?
- Weathers only part of it, a large part is cost of living and especially housing costs. People have this idea that people become mentally unwell drug addicts then lose housing then move to California for the better weather/ more compassionate state. In reality a lot of it is the reverse, people live in California, lose they're housing due to astronomical rents, then they become mentally unwell drug addicts due to the pain and trauma they suffer on the streets.
  Last point still stands though, we do need a green new deal to give these people housing and employ them in meaningful jobs to help the green transition.
In case you ever need led hardproof that America is not a Christian Nation.
- Feels pretty spot on for the Christians in the church I went to as a child
- But the Church will help! Our doors are always open! With strings attached, of course.
Trying to decide if the war is on homelessness or on the homeless. 🤔
- Why decide when you can just make it illegal to be homeless?
  
  If we make it illegal to be homeless, everyone will have a home! It's brilliant!
- We have more empty homes than we do the homeless. If this country wanted a war on homelessness, it'd be over in a year. And that's just the time it'd take to organize the moves. It isn't even entirely correct to say this is a war on the homeless, either. It's much broader than that and this conflict has been going on since time immemorial.
  This is the class war and we're losing.
- Literally? Both
  
  Well, no, they aren't fighting homelessness at all, that would mean trying to reduce, not to mention eliminate it.
  Capitalists want homelessness, so that they have a whole under class of people to lock up and exploit, and that also serve as a warning to the rest of the working class.
  The war is definitely against the homeless, not homelessness.
Sounds like the solution is for the homeless people to protest by refusing to sleep in shelters, forcing the police to arrest them all, overcrowding the jails and clogging the court system until the entire system grinds to a standstill.
So what do I know, I haven't been homeless in 15 years
- Jail = free labour
  Shelter = help
  
  Jail = makes $$$
  Help = costs $
  The math is clear.
- Sounds like this will inevitably happen anyway. It's not like they are bussing homeless people to Colorado are they?
  No actually, I am asking are they doing that, because I can see them doing that.
  
  it's not exactly a new thing, but yes. they've been trying to bus people as far as they can get away with.
Well now this really makes for a trio of facts that paint a horrifying picture:
Private, for profit prisons exist
Prison slave labour is legal
Homelessness can now be made illegal
Guess I should buy some stocks in companies that use prison labour.
- https://marketrealist.com/p/companies-that-use-prison-labor/#what-are-some-companies-that-use-prison-labor
  Verizon uses inmates to provide telecommunication services.
  Fidelity Investments uses some held assets to fund the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization that promotes inmate work.
  Kmart and JCPenney use inmate labor in Tennessee to make denim products.
  Walmart uses prison labor to clean barcodes so products can be resold.
  Some cheese and fish from Whole Foods comes from prison labor.
  Circuit boards from IBM come from Texas prisoners.
  Wendy's and McDonald's use prison labor to process beef for their food products.
  Amazon uses BOP labor for cleaning and sorting damaged goods
  
  Also Idaho potatoes are largely prison labor. McD's and Five Guys buy a lot of them
  
  I thought Kmart went out of business?
  
  Add Raytheon to that list.
  Edit: Downvoted for stating a fact..
- Anecdotes aside, prison stocks skyrocketed after Trump's election. Anybody wonder why?
  
  The fact that prisons have stocks..
  
  Because Hilary campaigned on banning private prisons which caused their stocks to collapse for a year until she lost.
Forcing people into shelters or jail is super fucked up. If I decide I want to camp out in a tent and remove myself from the capitalist grind I should be able to do it unmolested. These fucking vampires think they own every grain of sand.
So, where are they supposed to sleep? In a jail cell?
- Yep! That way they can be used for slave labor for the owner class.
  
  At a far higher rate than actually employing them at the median income would be as well.
  the median state spent $64,865 per prisoner for the year.
  The only reason that companies want prison labor is because it is cheap for them since the taxpayers are subsidizing the labor costs.
  Overall it would be cheaper for states to just pay the homeless the median income than to incarcerate them. A lower rate that could be described as a basic income that is implemented universally would go pretty far in both increasing the opportunities for the homeless to afford housing and reduce the chance of people from becoming homeless.
- Yes, and without what meager belongings they had prior to arrest. Any changes of clothes, tent, coats, bicycle, all gone.
- I'm seeing people who are very likely homeless walking down busy highways and even the interstate to get to the town where I live, presumably to go to the jobs they still have despite being "lazy homeless people." Walking down them miles out of town. They must have to walk for 2 or 3 hours minimum just to get to work. It would take them 2 hours to get to the nearest bus stop from where I often see them walking (near a woods where they must be camping).
  A significant number of them are Latino, and this town does not have a large native Latino population, making me think they are migrants who ended up homeless after hoping to come to America for a better life.
  I assume Republicans think all of that is just fine.
  
  This is the ground work to start mass deportation during project 2025 when Trump wins.
- In the case of CA, these people are going to be given in shelter beds. (I know, it sounds counterintuitive to the ruling.)
  The main reason CA brought the case is because they aren’t allowed force portions of their unhoused populations indoors. They can’t move a segment of the population unless there is enough space for the entire population.
  So, if a county had beds for half of the unhoused population, and it wanted to bring half of them indoors, it couldn’t. It could only make moves once it had beds for all.
  I’m sure some place will be shitty and will just throw people in jail, but the big west cost cities have a lot of unfilled shelter beds that they would like to fill.
  And all that being said, a lot of these unhoused people are avoiding shelters for a reason. Being on the street is actually preferable to what people experience in some shelters. So, as much as Newsom will tell you that he wants to be compassionate and give people a bed, he’s not telling you that bed is next to a psycho that’s going to scream all night then assault someone.
I'm going to misuse a couple of lines from Star Trek: The Next Generation, but I still think they work. Just imagine Q is all homeless people, and not evil, and Worf is SCOTUS:
Q: What do I have to do to convince you that I'm human?
Worf: Die.
- https://www.bellriots.com
For communities that do this, the goal is to...
A) Drive out the homeless so they go to other, more charitable communities, and become someone else's problem, and then...
B) Point out the higher rate of homelessness (and higher taxes necessary to deal with it) in those other communities and say, "Look how awful those communities are!"
- Or fuel the prison industrial complex sustaining a constant supply of slave labor and state funding for private prisons
  
  This is the one.
I was hoping the ruling was narrow and that nuance would make available solutions to move forward, but no. This is a broad decision that allows criminalizing using a pillow in public (that is part of the law in Grants Pass, which was ruled as acceptable). Justice Sotomayor said it correctly: sleeping is a biological necessity. If you don't have a place to sleep, you have to choose between not living and going to jail.
- They'll find a way to turn that into prison not jail.
This is really interesting in contrast to where I live in Ontario, Canada. A municipality wanted an injunction to make it crystal clear they could evict a homeless encampment on municipal property. Instead, they got a judgement that doing so would violate those people's Charter rights. This ruling means basically every municipality in the province now legally has to do something about the homelessness crisis.
- Same thing in BC... In the Prince George encapment case, it was ruled that unless there are enough shelter beds that are sufficiently accessible by the affected population, they are allowed to stay in the Lower Patricia encampment.
- My opinion has always been governmental spaces, especially those on or near the buildings lawmakers use, should always be an allowed campground for homeless people. They're the ones most responsible for the problem, they should have to see it every time they go to work.
Oh lord, this is the worst news to come from this week.
If sleeping anywhere for someone without a permanent place to live is allowed to be made illegal, we should have rotating shifts to keep the Court majority awake in their homes so that they will have to flee to Harlan Crow's yacht.
- Oh lord, this is the worst news to come from this week.
  It was a high bar, but they cleared it.
  
  Needless to say there was fierce competition. The pity I feel for Americans is to a level I feel physically sick.
As I recall, Gavin Newsom has basically been pushing to look at available shelter space, and clear portions of encampments based on that available space. Problem has been, legally, CA couldn’t clear encampments unless it could demonstrate that it had beds for everyone. As a result, CA has a lot of unclaimed shelter beds. Some counties don’t have enough for everyone, but they do have enough to start moving large portions of people inside.
That said, the conversations around this seem to miss one of the fundamental reasons why people are not excited take a shelter bed. Many shelters have been dirty, hostile, or down right unsafe. People have felt safer in tent communities where they could know and chose their neighbors.
I’m of two minds on this. The all or nothing rule on shelter beds was weird, but shelters need to be safe, help people get care, let people keep belongings, and not kick people out every morning at the crack of dawn.
- At least here in CA, the government seemed to be following the supreme court's previous ruling in good faith. I'd bet that they'll continue pursuing a similar course of action, just with one less technicality.
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.
Overall, the dissent is good. But it makes 1 fundamental mistake of constitutional analysis:
The Constitution cannot be evaded by such formalistic distinctions
It's not as if these folks can just go off into the woods and build a cabin. There's no where to go that isn't owned or protected. You gotta sleep somewhere, it's not a choice, people need to sleep.
- Next is extermination camps
Talk about kicking someone when already down..
In Star Trek, there were Sanctuary Districts to herd all the undesirables to in the 2020s.
In reality, we can't even be bothered to do that.
- That's just another word for Ghetto
  
  Here in LA, jerks are constantly suggesting "let's build a huge structure in the desert and move 'em there". They usually don't know what Manzanar was.
  And our answer is always no. The homeless are going to stay right here in everybody's faces until we actually solve the problem. We aren't willing to compromise on pushing them somewhere else.
  There is no LA homelessness problem. There is a national homelessness problem and we're dealing with it here because our Christian country won't.
Time to camp on SCOTUS lawns.
So. Unless you have permission to be on someone's private real estate, to you're now forbidden to sleep. Nothing dystopian about that.
- Nonsense. I'm sure someone with a home and a job will be allowed to take a carnap on the quad of their public university. It's only illegal to do it when you have to.
You can predict the outcome of this court's decisions with two questions:
A: Will it cause chaos?
B: Is it cruel?
They seem to feel it's bonus points if the answer to both is yes.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
Link to the opinion
“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.” Anatole France
Can we get a class action lawsuit to sue for housing? Isn't this almost entrapment like if the government doesn't supply space for people to sleep but the population is still growing and the border isn't completely sealed(not my solution I want) then shouldn't the government be forced to build new homes or at least bunkhouses?
- Could just show up to your town's zoning board meetings and keep hammering them each and every time they turn down a residential permit application
- I'd think that for a blanket no-homelessness policy to be even reasonably humane, each person would need a right of address, even a 50 sqft. parcel of public land in/by the town of choosing which they can call their domicile.
  
  If nothing else of there can't be government funded housing then homesteading/camping outside of city limits and an advanced public transport system would be the only other option I can think of
  They don't have to pay their housing but they must make sure they have the ability to make it to a job so they can avoid being homeless
It smaller towns the homeless could protest this by just camping out in Central Park openly. If they arrest them all the jails will fill up pretty quickly and the costs would be higher than if you paid for all of their rent
state's rights is some fake ass bullshit
Think I will donate some money and my homemade scarfs to a shelter this weekend. Clearly our Christian government isnt going to help guess it is up to us atheists.
- I mean the "justification" used by the Christians who vote for this kind of thing is that it would be under for the government to take money from people to help others, and it's up to each individual with money to give freely to support the poor, or whatever.
  That's what they say out loud, anyway. So they can blame atheists for not giving freely. Never mind that they tend to give less, but
  
  Glad I walked away from that garbage faith. I have seriously heard their shamans claim that they can be awful to immigrants because the direct biblical commandments to be nice to immigrants only apply to converts and since most immigrants are Christian they don't count.
  People arguing that you get to treat your own worse. It takes a special kinda fucked up to not even have basic levels of loyalty to your own.
They want to imprison homeless instead of house them to exploit them for slave labor. Abolish slavery in prisons and see if they keep outlawing homelessness.
- Homeless people who get arrested for camping and similar minor "offenses" are typically quickly released. Many of them have mental health and substance abuse issues, so they're not the best workers. Even the prisons don't want them.
So Police patrol forcing homeless to drink strong coffee?
- reminded me of
  ID: comic showing a homeless person sleeping in a doorway when a cop comes and tells them it's illegal to sleep in public. The homeless person replies saying they guess they'll just go to a hotel tonight, or maybe their townhouse or the Hamptons, then make a mock call to "Smithers" saying their "super fun street sleeping holiday" is over and asking which mansion they should sleep in, as the cop thinks "next: outlaw sarcasm"
You probably don't choose to be homeless, but you do choose where to put your tent.
Sleeping is a biological necessity. So is shitting. WHY CAN'T I SHIT WHEREVER I WANT?! America sucks.

104 comments