By Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters
Fed up with homeless encampments, California local officials are seeking guidance from the nation’s most powerful judges.
In a legal brief filed Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court, the California State Association of Counties and League of California Cities told the justices that a string of federal court rulings over the last five years that restrict cities’ abilities to sweep camps and order residents off the streets have made addressing health and safety concerns “unworkable.”
“The State of California and its cities and counties are engaged in unprecedented efforts to address homelessness through the creation of significant new policy initiatives and funding investments,” the league and association wrote. “However, camping ordinances can be a useful tool in appropriate circumstances in addressing the complex conditions that exist in our homeless populations.”
California cities made a similar appeal in 2019, but the court declined to hear that case.
It all stems from a landmark 2018 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an Idaho case that was binding on California local governments. Judges then decided that it’s unconstitutional to criminally penalize people camping in public when they lack “access to adequate temporary shelter.”
Since then, cities have often landed in court when trying to enforce camping bans, but the organizations said those cases haven’t clarified what’s allowed or required. Also since 2018 and during the COVID pandemic, the state’s homelessness crisis has only worsened, with more than 170,000 unhoused people this year. Most of them are unsheltered, living outdoors because most cities don’t have enough shelter beds. In some cases, unhoused people refuse available shelter beds for a variety of personal circumstances.
The crux of the legal debate now, CalMatters reported this month, is what makes a person “involuntarily homeless” — and whether cities can…
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