National homeless ruling likely won’t change local policies

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CA (July 23, 2024) — The highest court in the land may have given law enforcement the green light to start issuing citations to those living on the streets, but Central Contra Costa County officials and police departments aren’t expected to make any immediate changes in their approach to the homeless.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 28 that cities can ban people from sleeping and camping in public places. In a 6-3 decision, the justices overturned lower court rulings that deemed it cruel and unusual under the Eighth Amendment to punish people for sleeping outside if they had nowhere else to go.

The high court’s ruling came down in a challenge by Grants Pass, Ore., which like other cities along the West Coast is wrestling with increasing numbers of homelessness. The decision prohibits homeless people from sleeping in public places even when adequate shelter is unavailable.

‘Nothing has changed’

In the wake of the decision, Pleasant Hill Mayor Matt Rinn expressed his council’s intent to take some time to understand what effects the ruling may have before deciding what actions, if any, may be appropriate.

“At this time, nothing has changed,” said Pleasant Hill spokesman Geoff Gillette. “If the police department receives a complaint about an unhoused individual, they will respond and make contact with the individual. They will work to resolve the situation and connect the individual with resources through the Contra Costa County Health Department’s Coordinated Outreach, Referral, Engagement (CORE) program.”

Concord Mayor Edi Birsan echoed sentiments voiced by his Pleasant Hill neighbors in response to the ruling and the importance of the relationship forged with CORE, as well as contributions from independent community groups such as GROW and Hope Solutions. Birsan noted that Concord experienced a 28% decrease in homelessness during the 2024 point-in-time-count.

“In the post-SCOTUS decision, we will continue to operate to expand our approaches building on successes and experiences so far, with our council adopting a grant program in August that will make approximately $5 million of one-time funding available to local non-profits and service agencies to implement the strategies within the city’s Homeless Strategic Plan – in short to enhance services to our unsheltered community and help transition individuals and families into temporary or permanent housing,” Birsan said.

He suspected that going forward the ruling may provide a little more power to the notice of movement when implemented in response to encampments. Meanwhile, Concord Police are maintaining the status quo in regard to the homeless.

“Currently, we are reviewing the ruling and evaluating our overall approach to ensure we meet the needs of all members of our community,” said Lt. Renee Williams of the Bureau of Community Operations.

Likewise, county officials don’t foresee any big changes in their approach.

“Contra Costa Health remains focused on evidence-based solutions to help end homelessness in Contra Costa County,” said spokesman Karl Fischer. “We don’t anticipate the ruling having any effect on our CORE outreach services or other programs that support county residents who are experiencing homelessness.”

Varied opinions on ­ruling

John Paul Horn, assistant professor and graduate coordinator in the Department of Social Work at Cal State University East Bay, expressed “disappointment” with the ruling.

“I think it criminalizes a group of people who are experiencing some pretty substantial challenges to their wellbeing. Criminalizing the behavior of ‘sleeping outside,’ especially when the services are lacking or potentially coercive, is just a proxy for criminalizing a status,” Horn said.

In the Grants Pass case, Horn noted the only service provider required all those who received services to attend church, a practice which might be seen as coercive and indicative of seeing poverty or homelessness as an issue of moral failing.

Gov. Gavin Newsom seemed to applaud the decision, saying it removed the “legal ambiguities” that for years had tied the hands of local officials and limited what measure they could take to protect the safety and wellbeing of their communities.

Citing the challenging issue that homelessness represents for many cities, Horn said “Gov. Newsom is walking a delicate line of acknowledging that diversity of opinions on the homelessness crisis in California.”

Horn believed that localities that are already engaging in services to address housing insecurity will continue to do so. However, he worries that the court’s decision gives license to those who have decided not to address this issue to criminalize the behavior, instead of seeking incentives to solve the problem.

“Choosing to penalize rather than offer services is going to create a migration of people experiencing housing insecurity from localities where it is criminalized to those where it is not,” said Horn.

“This will create a strain on the areas that have elected not to criminalize housing insecurity and behavior associated with it, which, in turn, could lead to more and more places eventually criminalizing the behavior as they become overburdened with a social problem that is not easy to solve,” he continued.

Horn noted the most pressing problem among the public is a lack of understanding about homelessness.

“Most people have a very limited depiction of who is homeless and why. There is an observable disproportionality of people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity: people of color, LGBTQ+ people, people living with mental illness and those reentering from jail or prison are the most affected groups,” he said. “The causes for their homelessness can be very different from group to group, and this approach of criminalizing their experience invests no resources toward actually solving the problem.

“I see this (ruling) creating more problems in the long run than just the issue it tries to solve,” Horn added.