Posted on 04/20/2024 9:50:59 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
WASHINGTON (AP) — The most significant case in decades on homelessness has reached the Supreme Court as record numbers of people in America are without a permanent place to live.
The justices on Monday will consider a challenge to rulings from a California-based appeals court that found punishing people for sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.
A political cross section of officials in the West and California, home to nearly one-third of the nation’s homeless population, argue those decisions have restricted them from “common sense” measures intended to keep homeless encampments from taking over public parks and sidewalks.
Advocacy groups say the decisions provide essential legal protections, especially with an increasing number of people forced to sleep outdoors as the cost of housing soars.
The case before the Supreme Court comes from Grants Pass, a small city nestled in the mountains of southern Oregon, where rents are rising and there is just one overnight shelter for adults. As a growing number of tents clustered its parks, the city banned camping and set $295 fines for people sleeping there.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals largely blocked the camping ban under its finding that it is unconstitutional to punish people for sleeping outside when there is not adequate shelter space. Grants Pass appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the ruling left it few good options.
“It really has made it impossible for cities to address growing encampments, and they’re unsafe, unhealthy and problematic for everyone, especially those who are experiencing homelessness,” said lawyer Theane Evangelis, who is representing Grants Pass.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Fine the Homeless all you want. Most of them, if they have any money at all, spend it on drugs and booze.
Fining people who have no money is just the way a mindless bureaucracy functions.
How you deal with homeless people depends primarily on why they are homeless. Mentally ill druggie vs working class person bankrupted by medical bills and destroyed by bill collectors?
I have a HS classmate, he and wife are retired teachers. Her cancer treatments did them in. They had to move out of state and do everything under a relative’s name, owning nothing in their names and going by a different last name when possible. They are conservative, educated and responsible people. If they had not been able to do this they would be homeless. Some people don’t have family that could or would assist in such a manner.
The other side of the coin is the research that was offshored to Wuhan in 2015, to get around regulations that were enacted after several lab leaks here. We’re still paying for that mistake, and far more than it would have cost to follow regulations here.
They’ll pay the fines from the people who drop change into their cups?
Put them up in 5 star Hotels like they do illegals.
I heard that the Democrats and Congress wants to pass a bill that gives homeless Right to be squatters in homes that have been vacant for more than 30 days.
“If he worked a job on the books the creditors would take so much of his earnings he’d still be living in a tent.”
Two words: “Bankruptcy laws”
But yeah, I know a guy that lived in a tent. He had a job but living at a state park in Kentucky for 4 months allowed him to save the money for a down payment on a small house. There are reasons some people are homeless
Back in the real world:
“The day after her funeral he was told to leave his apartment.” A landlord can tell you to leave but it takes months to actually accomplish an eviction. No one pays medical bills rather than rent.
“If he worked a job on the books the creditors would take so much of his earnings he’d still be living in a tent.” How much would they be taking?
A lot of these “stories” tend to be “incomplete”.
That occurred to me too in reading that story.
If this guy was that much in debt with medical bills, he really should have seen an attorney to see what his legal rights were.. Bankruptcy may well have been a possibility. Perhaps too late for him now. It’s true if you don’t take action, you can have wages garnished.
America last!
Trillions for globalist wars and foreign countries, while America is bankrupt and homeless.
This is a real problem. In our little Northern California in the Gold Country, the homeless are taking over every corner whereas several years ago, it was not the case. I blame it on legalized pot where young men would come to the area to get jobs as “bud trimmers” get paid in pot and after a couple of months be out of pot and money and on the corner again with a sign...
My plan is to round up all the homeless, ship them to the Mojave...separate those that are simply homeless due to financial issues, etc—those that just need a hand up. Integrate them back into society.
The druggies and alkies...those that want treatment—treat them—as many times as needed because it can be tough for some....and re-integrate them back into society.
The mentally-ill? Treat them with compassion. Those that can re-integrate into society with medication—do it...those that just can’t get along with societal rules—create a safe environment—a tent city so to speak. Let them have their drugs and alcohol—safely regulated of course and they will remain outside of society—but it is our duty to protect those people so that they do not suffer or come under ill harm.
That is my idea and sure, there are holes in it that need refinement, but what else need society do? As Jesus said, the Poor will always be with us. Same with those that just can’t get with the societal program—not the avant garde, not the eccentrics—they are different. Every society and generation needs an Emperor Norton...
What did they think would happen when they let 10 million illegals into the country over the past few years? There’s not unlimited housing in this country. Having so many people competing for property has made rents go up and the price of a house has gone way up. These illegals are also taking away resources from local populations wherever they go. Schools, housing, medical treatment and jobs are just a few. Corrupt Joe Biden and all the other assholes don’t have to deal with the problems they created but the average American has no choice but to deal with it. It’s too bad so many people weren’t aware of how corrupt and stupid Joe Biden is. They could have listened to any person on this site if they wanted to hear the truth about Biden.
I am beginning to think we are at a point where you cannot get to the soul of this corrupt ruling class in our country. I think they actually want to kill all of us instead of live together. They are such cowards and at every level of authority. This is how Republics fall. These psychopaths gang up on every good person amongst them who tries to bring any accountability into our Government. What have they done to be so psychotic... it has to be something on the order of killing a child in a satanic ritual sacrifice. We have the most evil people in our Government running it... there is no other plausible explanation at this point.
The answer is CCC-style camps. Arrested for vagrancy? spend 6 months in a guarded quanset-hut camp in the countryside.
There they can have basic food and medical attention, and be kept away from drug dealers. The able-bodied can do physical labor and earn-money
Is it more humane to simply leave them on the street? All progressive-democrat solutions have failed, badly - not that they were ever intended to succeed anyway.
Of course, America with its present mind-set and political control could never, ever agree to such a thing.
That is what bugs me about these times, the destruction of the nuclear family. Families are smaller, and uncaring about extended family. Siblings, if any, pitted against each other. Parents giving up on angry children who go astray. Sad.
Daniel P. Collins, a Trump judge, dissented from the whackjob Clinton crowd.
A federal appeals court Wednesday upheld a ruling that found the city of Grants Pass in southern Oregon violated the constitutional rights of people experiencing homelessness through a series of ordinances designed to prevent sleeping outside on public property.
In a 2-1 decision, judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld a 2020 injunction issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Clarke, which ruled several ordinances designed to prevent people from sleeping on sidewalks and streets, violated the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment.
“We affirm the district court’s ruling that the City of Grants Pass cannot, consistent with the Eighth Amendment, enforce its anti-camping ordinances against homeless persons for the mere act of sleeping outside with rudimentary protection from the elements, or for sleeping in their car at night, when there is no other place in the City for them to go,” Roslyn Silver, a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Arizona states in the court’s opinion. Circuit Court Judge Ronald Gould signed onto Silver’s opinion. Both judges were appointed by former President Bill Clinton.
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When the 9th circuit court’s conservatives moved to have the full 9th Circuit reconsider that ruling, they fell short by a 14-13 vote.
if not seriously disabled or mentally ill perhaps he should have found work.
Nice interpretation, stopping people from sleeping on the sidewalk is now cruel and unusual PUNISHMENT.
BTT
Yes.
Something like this is what it has to be.
Instead they are legalizing all narcotics. It is happening in Canada now.
And the mass immigration has to stop. Legal or illegal.
Canada has had 1.5 million in the past year. We have 250,000 new dwellings constructed per year (many only one bedroom). That doesn’t work.
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