What to know about today's Supreme Court homelessness case
Today the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Grants Pass v. Johnson, the biggest homelessness case to reach the Court in decades.
Readers of this newsletter know I’ve been following the case and related issues on homeless tent encampments closely, and I actually will be sitting inside the Court this AM, having requested and been approved for a press pass. I know there will be activists and demonstrations happening outside the Supreme Court as well, and I’ll try and post some photos and videos from that on social media.
I thought before I go I would send out a list of media I’ve produced to help refresh readers on the stakes and issues, and/or get you up to speed:
I published a new story yesterday seeking to answer the critical question of what a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs could mean for homeless people. We hear a lot that this could affect the criminalization of homelessness, and I tried to get specific about what that really means, and what individuals like you can do to avoid some of the most inhumane possible outcomes.
I was a guest on Vox’s policy podcast, The Weeds last week where we talked about the Grants Pass case, about homelessness in America generally, and some solutions to homelessness on the table. I appreciated getting to be on this show and bring in a lot of different reporting I’ve done over the last two years into one conversation.
Here’s a piece I published in January laying out background on the Grants Pass v. Johnson case, following the Supreme Court’s announcement that it would hear it. A key question they will consider is: is it cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the 8th Amendment, to fine, ticket or arrest people sleeping outside if they have nowhere else to go?
Here is an explainer on homeless tent encampments and the debate over what to do about them that I published in the winter of 2023. (This article was actually cited in a Supreme Court amicus brief filed this month by six Democratic attorneys general, which was pretty remarkable and meaningful for me see.)
Here is another article I published in June 2023 on Martin v. Boise, the pivotal 2018 Ninth Circuit decision that Grants Pass builds on. This decision said that people experiencing homelessness can’t be punished for sleeping outside on public property if there are no adequate alternatives available.
The lead counsel for the city of Grants Pass told me in October that she believes Martin v. Boise and Grants Pass v. Johnson are “legally wrong” and that she hopes the Supreme Court will “undo these harmful decisions.”
Thanks for reading, please let me know if you have any questions! We’ll keep covering this