GUEST COMMENTARY - Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions by conservative justices resulted in disbelief and disappointment. The conservative majority’s obtuseness overturned Roe v Wade taking away federally guaranteed rights for reproductive care, and reversed the ban on bump stocks for guns. The July 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the Ninth Circuit Court’s ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson was another crucial decision that further displays the morally skewed rationale of the conservative SCOTUS justices.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that it is unconstitutional to cite and arrest indigent and homeless individuals for sitting, lying or sleeping on public property when not enough shelter is available, and cited the Eighth Amendment prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” In my view, the Ninth Circuit advanced a compassionate decision by citing the Eighth Amendment’s clause. In contrast the majority SCOTUS decision leads to policing, harassment, and jailing of unhoused individuals without solving the problem.
To complicate an already thorny situation California Governor Newsom agreed with the SCOTUS decision and issued an Executive Order to city leaders to clear encampments.
Now that the Ninth Circuit decision has been overturned, and Governor Newsom has joined the call to clear encampments, how will it affect LA City policies around homelessness?
LA City has had a long history of attempting to enforce anti-vagrancy and anti-camping ordinances. The LA City Council codified LAMC 41.18 in 1936. The ordinance was designed to prevent normal human functions of sitting, lying, or sleeping on any street, sidewalk, or public space, obstructing the free passage of pedestrians on sidewalks, tunnels, or bridge overpasses storing personal property in a manner that obstructs or interferes with any activity in a public area.
In the Ninth Circuit 2018 Martin v Boise decision homeless plaintiffs won their case to prevent criminalization because not enough shelter beds were available. Following that decision the LA City Council amended enforcement of certain provisions of the LAMC 41.18 ordinance to align more closely with the provisions of the Ninth Circuit ruling. The decision in favor of homeless plaintiffs in Johnson v Grants Pass followed.
However, in LA during the 2020 COVID pandemic, when unhoused people were allowed to “shelter in place,” due to an Executive Order from then LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, encampments grew. Business owners and community members became alarmed.
Heeding the guidance from the 2018 Ninth Circuit decision to offer shelter to those living on the street, in 2021 a majority of LA City Councilmembers reinstituted and amended LAMC 41.18 and adopted a Street Engagement Strategy from which temporary housing could be offered alongside enforcement of the amended LAMC 41.18. The crafting of those decisions was informed, in part, by the results of the 2019 Homeless and Supportive Housing Advisory Task Force whose co-chairs were Mayor Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento and Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas of Los Angeles.
The Street Engagement Strategy employed LAHSA and its contracted service providers to outreach directly to individuals living in encampments throughout LA City offering them resources and temporary housing. Council districts identified locations where outreach was required, and signs were posted stating where LAMC 41.18 would be enforced.
Due to growing encampments, community members and city leaders became embroiled in conflicts around moving individuals away from LAMC 41.18 locations. But temporary shelter was scarce. Through service provider outreach efforts, LAPD intervention, and sanitation “sweeps,” unhoused individuals who were under threat of citation or arrest, moved away from LAMC 41.18 locations. They set up encampments in other locations or repopulated encampment sites that were previously cleared.
The LA Chief Legislative Analyst’s report dated May 31, 2024 regarding LAMC 41.18 efficacy and the Street Engagement Strategy, underscored the point that due to the scarcity of shelter beds, unhoused individuals had very little choice but to live on the street and wait for a shelter bed.
Out of 1,856 engaged clients, 313 individuals were placed in interim housing and 2 in permanent housing yielding a 17% placement rate. In 2023 the LA City Controller Audit reported that the number of available shelter beds was 16,100 for 46,200 unhoused individuals, or around 35%.
After a lot of hard work by service providers and advocates, while operating under conditions of housing scarcity, a modicum of unhoused individuals were brought indoors and encampments were cleared.
The January 2024 Greater LA Homeless Count reported a 2.2% decrease of homelessness in LA City at 45,252, and a 2.7% decrease in LA County totaling 75,312, LA City Mayor Karen Bass said “I know that many Angelenos have felt that this situation was hopeless,” she said. “Today we know that we can and we will bring people inside, and move L.A. in a different direction.”
Mayor Bass sought to increase the number of interim housing units through the Inside Safe program which reportedly placed around 22,000 individuals in hotel and motel beds within the first year. In response to Governor Newsom’s Executive Order to clear encampments in California cities, she is quoted as saying, “for the first time in years, unsheltered homelessness has decreased in Los Angeles because of a comprehensive approach that leads with housing and services, not criminalization.”
Presently, LA City is at a tipping point: on the one hand it could honor Governor Newsom’s Executive Order to clear encampments using police force – unhoused individuals could be cited and jailed. The result will be a continuation of racist, segregationist, punitive, morally repugnant policies that incarcerate vulnerable communities. In addition, it comes at great financial cost: one year in a California prison costs $132,860. Once released the individual is still homeless and will leave jail with an incarceration record, further preventing them from obtaining housing.
OR LA City could increase the number of interim housing units, and work towards providing more permanent housing for extremely low income individuals. The 2023 UCSF Benioff Study reported numerous factors causing homelessness including the lack of extremely low income housing. Medical, mental health and substance abuse treatment is woefully inadequate to handle the urgent needs of individuals living on the street and must be increased. In all cases accountability must be provided for outcomes.
So what will LA City do? Mayor Bass indicated that she will continue a comprehensive program to house eligible participants. LA County Supervisor Lindsay Horvath agrees. However, the U.S. Supreme Court decision has implications nationally that could lead to criminalizing homelessness in cities surrounding LA City. Municipalities such as San Francisco, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Fresno, Long Beach and cities in other states are ordering “sweeps” of encampments. As a result, unhoused individuals are being displaced, and will have to move from place to place to avoid punishment.
We cannot solve homelessness by criminalizing indigent individuals for being homeless –that approach is a moral failure. It is necessary to invest in housing for extremely low income individuals, keep rents affordable, and provide mental health, medical and substance use treatments for individuals in need. It is important to abandon the morally skewed rationale of the conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices by providing people with respect, dignity and housing.
(Jane Demian is a retired registered nurse with a Master’s degree in Psychology Research. She remains licensed as a nurse and brings a wealth of experience in healthcare and psychological research.)
