June 28, 2024
For Immediate Release

Press contacts:
Paul Boden (415) 430-7358
pboden@wraphome.org

Terese Howard (701) 484-2634
terese@housekeysactionnetwork.com

Adam Smith (310) 597-9204
adams@cangress.org

SCOTUS TEARS UP UNHOUSED PEOPLE’S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

Washington D.C. – The Supreme Court issued a decision today in the landmark case Grants Pass vs Johnson. This case centers on whether governments can fine and arrest unhoused people who have no other choice but to sleep outside. As expected our Dred Scott loving Supreme Court diluted people’s 8th amendment protections against Cruel and Unusal punishment.

Lower courts had ruled that Grants Pass practices were in fact found to be unconstitutional as they were arresting and citing unhoused people for camping, who have no other choice but to live on the streets.

“Anti-camping and lodging ordinances result in citations, arrests, and forced displacement for the inescapably human act of taking up space. These ordinances cause essential belongings, including items necessary to basic human survival, to be confiscated and destroyed. And they severely curtail people’s ability to pursue economic and housing security.” According to Terese Howard of House Keys Action Network in Denver, CO.

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According to Paul Boden of WRAP “Criminalizing poverty and homelessness not only fails to address systemic causes of mass homelessness, it also exacerbates both the underlying structures of oppression that continue to plague our society, racism and classism”

“We want to see everyone have a safe and decent place to call home. Homelessness kills, housing saves lives – these protections against inhumane policing are critical to forcing local government to solve the crisis.” According to Jennifer Friedenbach of the Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco

Ordinances criminalizing people for their status as unhoused people are not only cruel but are derived from rejected historical efforts to banish undesirable people from public spaces. The court should have followed historical precedent and deemed the criminalization of basic survival unconstitutional.

Civil penalties and/or forced displacement of unhoused residents is a clear form of punishment, with severe collateral consequences that make obtaining housing impossible.

The decision to side with Grants Pass concretizes displacement into law which will continue to exacerbate the already negligent and abusive conditions unhoused people face every day simply to survive in this country.

About Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP)
The Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2005 by local social justice organizations across the West Coast to expose and eliminate the root causes of homelessness and poverty, empower communities to demand protection of civil and human rights and advocate for restoring federal funding for affordable housing. A coalition of nine member organizations, WRAP is led by people with life experience living unhoused, representing the diversity of lived experiences for what is a growing human rights crisis in every community in the United States.

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