A Pallet shelter at the Chandler Street Tiny Home Village on February 1, 2021 in the North Hollywood ... [+]
Last month, the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments in the Johnson v. City of Grants Pass case, a dispute between people who are living in improvised shelter and local governments trying to address health and safety issues associated with people sheltering in public spaces. In November, I posted about Johnson v. Grants Pass as well as another underlying case, Martin v. City of Boise, and legal briefs filed by west coast cities like the one filed by San Francisco city officials. What’s at stake in the case, if lower courts are overruled, is what will happen going forward with encampments: will cities sweep them and create internment camps or will they take more measured steps. Either way, local jurisdictions face the same problem, pay for keeping people in jail or for other measures. The answer is also the same as it has been for years; work with encampments to find incremental solutions.
The biggest problem with the legal cases and the discussion about encampments is the assumption by many that simply offering people who are living in public spaces an apartment key will solve the problem. This is a fantastical notion because housing is expensive to build and it takes lots of time, even if permitting and zoning wasn’t so complicated. More importantly, many people who have formed communities in public spaces don’t want a conventional apartment. Many would prefer something between that and a tent, something with a door that locks and allows for storage.
I noted this in the post from last November:
“The problem that cities have been having in the 9th circuit, which is west coast states along with Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Arizona began with a case from Boise, Martin v. City of Boise. In 2018, a ruling in that case determined that as ‘long as there is a greater number of homeless individuals in a jurisdiction than the number of available beds in shelters, the jurisdiction cannot prosecute homeless individuals for involuntarily sitting, lying, and sleeping in public.’”
Shelter usually isn’t the issue. More often people don’t want to go to shelters because those shelters deny them the ability to store their things, use drugs or alcohol, bring a partner or a pet. Often shelters require everyone to leave at a set time and come back again and wait for another bed. Often shelters are a lot like jails, with assaults and outbreaks of illness. Simply put, anyone reading this confronted with congregate shelter might well choose some other solution like sleeping in a car or collaborating with other people to build an encampment.
If we assume that the Supreme Court reverses lower court rulings none of this will change; jurisdictions will be forced to jail people sleeping and living in public spaces or find other options. As I and others have said before, this is a solvable problem; in Memphis the Hospitality Hub patiently worked with people in community that had developed in the right of way under a freeway. It took time, but by asking the question, “Where would you want to be if you couldn’t be here?” and actually listening and responding, the space was eventually cleared.
Leaders and people in cities and towns need to accept that there will always be some level of people on the streets, especially as long as drugs like fentanyl are cheap and plentiful. Putting people in jail will result in costly legal bills, and even if it is successful, the average cost of keeping people in jail is almost $50,000 per person, per year. Even at the high end, that much money would by a small prefabricated shelter that could sit on land that could be managed by a non-profit in cooperation with residents. Pie in the sky? Maybe, but so is putting everyone currently living in public spaces in jail. It won’t work. Incremental solutions are not just necessary but efficient and compassionate.
