Backtalk BETSY MCCAUGHEY / GUEST COLUMNIST
Supreme Court Right to Curb Homeless Camps
W
hether you live in a city or a small town, you’re a winner because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in City of Grants Pass v. John- son, announced at the end of June.
The high court ruled 6-3 that municipalities can ban
homeless encampments from sidewalks, parks, and other public areas. Sleeping in the rough is not a constitutionally guaranteed right, said the court. It’s likely no other Supreme Court ruling this year will positively impact more people. In cities plagued by street living, parents walking their
children to school must navigate around discarded needles and human waste. Store owners opening up in the morning have to deal
with entrances blocked by cardboard shelters. People risk getting mugged walking by the encamp-
ments on their way to work. The small town of Grants Pass, Oregon, banned sleep-
ing under cardboard boxes, tents, and blankets in public places.
Homelessness advocates sued, citing a 2018 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals ruling: Martin v. City of Boise. It said that fi ning or jailing people for sleeping in the rough was “cruel and unusual punishment,” a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Lawyers for Grants Pass asked the Supreme Court to
overturn Martin, citing the incidence of “crime, fi res, the reemergence of medieval diseases,” and “record levels of drug overdoses and deaths on public streets” wherever sleeping rough is tolerated. In every one of the nine states aff ected by the Martin
ruling — Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Mon- tana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington — street living has soared since 2018, up 51% in Alaska, 46% in Idaho, and 46% in Oregon, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual homeless survey. Legal- izing living rough encourages it. Had the Supreme Court ruled against Grants Pass, all 50
states likely would be facing a surge in street living. Stunningly, the three justices who dissented in Grants
Pass — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — showed no interest in how homeless encamp- ments harm quality of life for other residents. Sotomayor, who penned the dissent, sneered at the
majority for framing the problem “as one involving drugs, diseases, and fi res instead of one involving people trying to
98 NEWSMAX | AUGUST 2024
keep warm outside with a blanket.” Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson want to legitimate
sleeping rough, arguing that there are “myriad legitimate reasons people may lack or decline shelter.” New York City’s far-left City Council has the same mis-
guided idea. It passed a “Homeless Bill of Rights,” making street living a right. The average lifespan of someone living on the street is 48 years, compared with 78 for most people. Losing three decades of life is not a right. It’s a terrible
wrong. S
upreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, cited data from many cities showing that
most homeless are living on the street by choice, refusing off ers of shelter in favor of easy access to illegal drugs and no shelter rules. San Francisco attested to the court that it has “seen
over half of its off ers of shelter and services rejected by unhoused individuals who often cite” the Martin order “as their justifi cation to permanently occupy and block public sidewalks.” Finally, Gorsuch said judges should not be homeless-
ness czars, dictating policy. It’s up to local lawmakers to decide how the homeless are cared for and how public resources are spent. The Grants Pass ruling is a bold denun- ciation of judges making decisions that should be left to locally elected leaders. New York City is a victim of this judicial activism. For
over four decades, residents have been forced to foot an enormous bill — billions of dollars a year — because of a consent decree and subsequent court rulings that dictate the city’s homeless policies, down to details like meals served and square footage per person. The big winner is the homeless-advocacy-industrial
complex that runs shelters, fi les lawsuits, and profi ts off the exorbitant spending. New York City is the only place compelled by the courts
to guarantee shelter for all comers. It will bankrupt New York. Tell Mayor Eric Adams it’s
time to challenge the consent decree and wrest control of homeless policy from judges. If little Grants Pass can do it, the Big Apple can, too.
Betsy McCaughey is a patient advocate, constitutional scholar, syndicated columnist, regular contributor on Newsmax TV, and former lieutenant governor of New York.
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