It’s too soon to tell what Friday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing cities to enforce bans on people sleeping outside in public places — even when no shelter spaces are available — means for efforts to address homelessness in the Inland Empire, according to officials .
The Supreme Court published its decision Friday, June 28, regarding a case out of Grants Pass, Oregon. The town’s local ordinances fined people $295 for sleeping outside. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has jurisdiction over nine Western states, ruled in 2018 that such bans violate the Eighth Amendment — which protects against imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishment — in areas where there aren’t enough shelter beds.
The Supreme Court voted 6-3 in favor of Grants Pass, splitting along ideological lines.
“Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion for the majority. “A handful of federal judges cannot begin to ‘match’ the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding ‘how best to handle’ a pressing social question like homelessness.”
People who have no choice but to sleep outdoors could raise that as a “necessity defense,” when punished for violating a camping ban, he wrote.
At least one prominent California Democrat cheered the court’s decision.
“Today’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court provides state and local officials the definitive authority to implement and enforce policies to clear unsafe encampments from our streets,” Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a statement issued by his office. “This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common-sense measures to protect the safety and well-being of our communities.”
That said, “California remains committed to respecting the dignity and fundamental human needs of all people and the state will continue to work with compassion to provide individuals experiencing homelessness with the resources they need to better their lives,” he wrote.
California is home to one-third of homeless residents in the United States. More than 650,000 people are estimated to be homeless nationwide, the most since records began to be kept. Almost half of them sleep outside. Locally, 3,055 homeless residents were counted in San Bernardino County in January, along with 3,725 in Riverside County in 2022, the last time that county conducted a survey. And on Friday, Los Angeles County officials announced they had counted 75,312 homeless people in their January count.
Others were not as enthusiastic as Newsom.
“Everyone in California deserves a safe, dignified place to live,” Kath Rogers, staff attorney at ACLU Foundation of Southern California, wrote in a written statement. “This Supreme Court ruling — decimating a half century of precedent — continues in the shameful tradition of choosing to remove unhoused people from public view rather than provide our community members with what they actually need: affordable housing.”
Locally, officials are in a wait-and-see mode regarding the consequences of the Grants Pass decision.
In the past, San Bernardino County has imposed limited anti-camping bans. In 2021, the Board of Supervisors directed land use services and code enforcement staff to help clear homeless encampments in unincorporated areas designated as “very high fire hazard severity zones.” That’s mostly the county’s mountains and canyons.
“The county will take a look at the decision and determine if there would be any local impacts,” county spokesperson David Wert said Friday. “The county is developing a plan to work with interested cities, share encampment data from the (January) point-in-time count, and expand the county’s homeless strategy to help address encampments and work to get our unsheltered residents the support they need.”
Homeless rights activists filed federal lawsuits against the city of Riverside in 2023, accusing them of seizing and destroying the property of more than 100 plaintiffs.
Riverside Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson had a measured response to the court decision on Friday afternoon.
“We are reviewing the court’s decision to better understand how we maintain order in our public spaces,” she wrote in a text message. “We cannot tolerate the suffering we see daily and are hopeful the court’s decision will strengthen our ability to change the inhumane conditions for people living on the street.”
The city of San Bernardino was also sued in 2023 over its anti-camping ordinances. Three plaintiffs sued the city for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act when they were moved out of city parks by the city without long-term accommodations available. In January, a federal judge stopped the city from removing people sleeping outside on public property until further federal review could take place.
“Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court will not solve the homelessness issue, however it does provide much needed legal clarity,” San Bernardino spokesperson Jeff Kraus wrote in a statement Friday afternoon. “It confirms that cities like San Bernardino have the legal authority to maintain and clean public property and can make that public property available to all residents, not just those who are unhoused. We hope this ruling will encourage more individuals to accept the services available to help them stabilize their lives and we look forward to returning San Bernardino parks to our families and children.”
The court’s ruling does not impact the current injunction the city is under, Kraus noted. Officials expect a resolution in that case “soon,” he said.
More on homelessness in the Inland Empire
- Homeless encampments in San Bernardino County mountains target of new ban
- Why haven’t we solved homelessness in California?
- Squatters at Redlands’ largest homeless encampment face removal
- Here’s how San Bernardino plans to help homeless residents
- Homeless rights advocates take court fights to Inland Empire
- Federal judge temporarily bans San Bernardino from displacing homeless residents
- Backed by $35 million grant, San Bernardino unveils planned 140-unit campus for homeless men
- Redlands converted motel for the homeless still hasn’t passed fire and building inspections
