Image: Дворецкая Таня-stock.adobe.com
On June 28, 2024, the United States Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Grants Pass v. Johnson that cities could prohibit camping and sleeping in public places, that such laws didn’t rise to the level of cruel and unusual punishment–even when there is no available shelter. In short: cities can fine or arrest people for sleeping in public areas.
Since then, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), jurisdictions have passed over 320 laws that basically criminalize homelessness, and six of those places are in Washington state.
Criminalizing homelessness worsens already barely tolerable ways of living, penalizes people for their misfortunes and doesn’t solve homelessness.
I have imagined what I would do if I lost my housing, and every place that I would think to shelter after overstaying my welcome with friends and family–my car, or a tent in any public park or vacant piece of land, whether urban, suburban or in the mountains; a hidden doorway–would be potentially illegal. The thought of having nowhere safe to sleep, shower, eat, sit, use the bathroom or simply relax at any time of day fills me with anxiety. What would happen if I were also ill or physically or mentally debilitated? Couldn’t buy food? Outcast and shunned by everyone passing by? You can see that people experiencing homelessness have to summon an incredible amount of courage and resourcefulness to get through hour after hour.
No one wants to have to be that strong. I believe that everyone has a right to housing, a full stomach, adequate health care and acceptance, regardless of who they are and why they do not have access to these basic life necessities.
Now with a proposed budget threatening Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, we are beginning a newly cruel cycle, with sudden, destabilizing, thoughtless cuts and unpredictability in government employment and services. The trickle-down chaos will make everything worse: unemployment for government workers; less money for affordable housing, homelessness and food insecurity services; and too few medical, mental and behavioral health providers and access to them. Our region doesn’t have enough shelter or affordable housing for those who have already been experiencing chronic homelessness. As jobs and housing are lost, what will people do now? You can make sleeping in public a crime, but there must be a place for people to go. We don’t just disappear, we have to be somewhere.
Like it or not, a society binds all its members together and every thinning of the bonds weakens the whole. Every link is a real person with hopes and needs. I urge us all to think about all of us, the big picture, the long-term, the consequences of marginalization, and seek solutions that strengthen the whole, where every person is equally valued, and no one’s misfortune is criminalized.