Checkpoint: Grant’s Pass’s Blinkered View Of Homelessness

Ben Botkin

In a key case concerning whether or not cities may criminalize homelessness, Grants Pass v. Johnson, the attorney for the city, Theane D. Evangelis, defended the city’s laws aimed at finning people who sleep on public land. In the undeniable position of defending such laws, Evangelis made relatively compelling arguments that the courts should not dictate municipal housing policy while failing to defend the law based on its intention and on the basis that homelessness is not a status.

At the beginning of the city’s defense of its laws, Evangelis argued that the Ninth Circuit, which heard the case before the Supreme Court, had effectively “imposed a municipal code” on the city regulating “what the City can do in its public spaces.”

Evangelis makes a fair point here. Though it’s certainly within the court’s jurisdiction to settle municipal code issues it’s hard to imagine that anyone thinks that this is a way to tackle housing policy in America. I agree with Evangelis and the city in saying that it’s not ideal for the courts to address the city’s housing problem. In an ideal world, the city, not the Ninth Circuit, would remedy the lack of affordable housing in their municipality.
Evangelis elaborated saying that “federal courts are now deciding everything from the exact size of campsites in San Rafael to the adequacy of empty beds at specific shelters, like the Gospel Rescue Mission in Grants Pass, and cities are struggling to apply arbitrary, shifting standards in the field.”

Again I agree with Evanglis on the absurdity of the situation. The only issue here is that the city has elected to fine the homeless for sleeping outdoors rather than implement a policy aimed at housing the homeless. With the city abdicating its duty, I would argue it’s the job of state lawmakers to intervene to set housing policy in Oregon. In California, for instance, state lawmakers passed a slate of legislation aimed at permitting developers to build otherwise prohibited taller and denser developments if they set aside some of the housing for people from across the economic spectrum.  Grants Pass isn’t the only city in the state encountering this problem, and a statewide policy would almost certainly be more effective because the state has the resources to approach the issue head-on.

Evangelis made another good point later in the arguments saying “I think the Eighth Amendment is the wrong way to look at it,” the Eighth Amendment which is concerned with cruel and unusual punishment. While I would contest that fining people for sleeping on public land is at the very least unusual and is probably cruel too, when you consider what the law wishes to accomplish, Evangelis raises a fair point.

“Someone might have a due process challenge to a law like that if there is a deeply entrenched liberty interest,” Evangelis says.

It should concern every citizen when the state steps in to limit the way people can use public space without good reason. Certain freedoms are appropriate to curtail in public however we should certainly ask whether sleeping on public land poses a significant enough risk to the public good to necessitate banning it outright.

This, however, is likely the last good argument Evangelis made at the Supreme Court, at least through a moral lens. Evangelis and the justices got particularly caught up on whether or not homelessness qualifies as a status.

“ I don’t think that homelessness is a status like drug addiction,” Evangelis said, adding that “it is so fluid, it’s so different. People experiencing homelessness might be one day without shelter, and the next day with. The federal definition contemplates various forms.”

While the legal concept of a “status” is important to relevant case law I would contest that this distinction is in many ways absurd. Who’s to say who is and is not an addict? For example: Where would you put the line? How many consecutive days of drug use does a person have to engage in to be an addict and how many days clean would make them no longer an addict? Evangelis also demonstrates a poor understanding of addiction in her argument because any addict or person who’s known an addict will recognize that addiction is also fluid. People often don’t follow through with commitments to quit smoking for example. Would they be an addict for the week when they promised to “quit for good?” Furthermore, many people who do quit often live with addiction hanging over them for the rest of their lives. On the other hand, some people’s addiction is tied to their environment and might fade when their circumstances change.

The city’s arguments only escalated in absurdity when Evangelis explained the supposed intention of the law, that “there is harm in simply camping” and that “it encourages people to accept alternatives when they come up so that fewer people end up camping.”

To address the firm argument. There undoubtedly is some harm in camping. However, what about this law is intended to address that harm? There is no world where fining people for sleeping in public areas, camping on public property, or parking overnight addresses that harm. What is the recourse for someone experiencing homelessness if they are fined for doing something that they need to do to survive? All that the Grants Pass law accomplishes is either forcing the homeless to flee the city limits or, for those unable to do so, tossing them in jail. The best-case scenario for Grants Pass is that the homeless will go to a neighboring city.

Addressing the second argument it falls apart when Evangelis elaborates that the principle alternative, from the city’s perspective, is the Gospel Rescue Mission, a religious organization with fewer than 100 beds that advertises their method as beginning with “spiritual counseling” and “chapel and church attendance.”

Now, I have no objections to people seeking help or community through faith but the idea that the homeless either need to convert or be badgered by police is distasteful for a variety of reasons, like, for example, a homeless person simply might not be a Christian.

Aside from potentially asking people to convert to avoid a citation from the city, the idea that enough of the more than 600 homeless people will suddenly find “alternatives” that render them no longer homeless and that 100 beds will accommodate the rest is pure fantasy.