By Erica C. Barnett
Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison released a statement praising the US Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, which effectively overturns a Ninth Circuit ruling, Martin v. Boise, that has forced cities to make at least a nominal offer of shelter before removing homeless encampments.
“Today’s ruling makes it clear that determining policy to address homelessness is a task for locally elected leaders,” Davison said in a statement. “This decision emphasizes the importance of local authority. The variety of local jurisdictions throughout the country that supported Grants Pass in this litigation demonstrates that local governments recognize the importance of creating safe and healthy environments for everyone in the community, a challenging task made even more difficult by the constraints of the Ninth Circuit’s prior ruling.”
In the ruling, which was widely anticipated by homeless advocates and service providers, the court upheld a law in Grants Pass, Oregon that criminalizes the use of blankets, pillows, and protective gear while sleeping in public, including inside a vehicle. Homelessness, the court majority ruled, is not a state of being like mental illness or addiction, but an action that a person could effectively choose not to engage in.
Davison, a Republican, previously wrote an amicus brief in the Grants Pass case, arguing that encampments “have an intensely negative impact impact on neighboring residents. Most report a plummeting quality of life, and businesses exasperated by the increased crime and decreased sales will often relocate to new markets.”
In the brief, Davison also claimed that living unsheltered (and thus sleeping unsheltered) is a form of voluntary “conduct,” not a state of being. The court echoed this argument in its ruling, saying that the anti-camping laws in Grants Pass criminalize sleeping outdoors regardless of a person’s “status.” A housed person who chooses to sleep in a park overnight, the court majority wrote, is not treated differently under the law than someone who sleeps in a park because they don’t have a home.
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In its ruling, the court zeroed in on statistics from the city of Seattle, which claimed that 60 percent of people simply “refuse” legitimate offers of shelter. As we’ve reported many times, an “offer” of shelter may not be viable for any number of reasons. Many shelters have strict abstinence or behavioral policies that make them inappropriate with addiction or mental illness. Many are individual or single-gender shelters that require people to leave their partners; many ban pets or do not allow people to bring more than a few possessions.
Additionally, shelters are often located far away from the places homeless people live. Like housed people, homeless people build communities with other people and live in neighborhoods; someone who grew up in Ballard and became homeless there may be understandably reluctant to relocate across for a temporary shelter bed.
Seattle adopted rules (known as the Multidisciplinary Administrative Rules, or MDARs) in 2017 saying that the city won’t remove an encampment without providing 72 hours notice and offering each resident a shelter bed, except in limited circumstances in which a tent or encampment constitutes an “obstruction or immediate hazard.”
In practice, the city has interpreted “obstruction” to include virtually any tent or encampment located on public property, including all areas of public parks, allowing the city’s encampment removal team to bypass the required notice and shelter offer.
A spokesman for Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office says Harrell has no plans to propose legislation changing the rules to make it easier to remove encampments now that there’s no requirement that cities offer shelter to people they displace.
“Our approach to resolving encampments is based on data, best practices, and our values – and the Supreme Court decision will not affect that approach,” Harrell said in a statement. “Our approach leads with offering shelter and services as part of the encampment resolution process, ensuring people come indoors at the same time as we keep public spaces clean and accessible for everyone. The City’s Unified Care Team closely follows the requirements set out in the MDARs, grounding the City’s encampment resolution work in the compassionate approach we believe in.”
I am homeless now in Tacoma at the first site set up in Washington to help those seeking …..
When the law was passed for ss.card
Mandatory for identity approval from an employer …..
I went for a renewal card and found out there was no blood quantum on record with the number that I had been using 50 plus years after my international adoption . . .
And my number now shows up with red flag in SS files . . .
And a renewal card denied . .
Reminder since law was passed . . .
This situation is far from over and may never be …..
If it wasn’t for community support that came from an encampment break up 2017 . . .
I have knowledge From both sides of the argument . . .
I can hardly wait until Sara Nelson starts lobbying Olympia for a law that says no poor person is allowed to get behind on bills, or they’ll be exiled from Washington. After all, getting behind on bills isn’t as central to poverty as sleeping outside is to homelessness.
I personally feel that there is a solution to the politicians not really knowing what the hell they’re talking about when it comes to homelessness cuz they’ve never been there I think that every elected official city council to the President should have to spend a certain amount of time as a homeless person drop them off downtown with 10 bucks in their pocket and see how long they last at the same time I guess it would also weed out the ones that really aren’t for the people huh
All of you complaining, then let them stay with you! I am not saying the ruling was right. I do not believe it is a choice for some. But for A LOT, it definitely is a choice. So until all of these keyboard heros, allow the homeless to live on their lawn and in their backyards. Stop with the fake justice talks. These places are dangerous for kids who are in the streets, women who get sold or raped, and the mentally ill. They need to be moved off the streets.
State of being? Resulting conduct is only a choice? Saying that a person will be allowed to be mentally ill or broke or have an addiction as long as they “choose” to act like they don’t is like telling a person with a cold not to sneeze. Surely the Court, Davison, et al can come up with a more believable excuse for their cruelty than that asininity!
The sheer stupidity of our electeds’ and the Supreme Court’s rationalizations would be hilarious if they weren’t so hateful and cruel. Yet once more, “leaders” criminalize poverty, mental illness, and addiction.
So how soon was start to what cleaning people off the streets in Seattle. It is a dangerous zone.
Maybe we start wherever you’re at.
It is a CHOICE! I personally was homeless living down at South Lake Union. Got a job at the 76 gas station at Westlake and Mercer. Worked swing shift and had my clothes and sleeping bag in storage closet at the gas station. Got off work and went across street to South Lake Union and crashed at the park. I sold the other homeless liquor and food at the gas station so they watched over me to sleep. Did that for 2 months and saved every dime. Ate leftover deli food. Showered at local gym. Moved into the Jensonia at 8th and Seneca for $159 a week and I’ve never looked back! Anybody can do it, alot CHOOSE not to.
Because everybody’s circumstances are exactly like yours, right?
Well you were breaking the Grants Pass law when you “crashed in the park”. You couldn’t even work a job and sleep in your car under this ordinance.
It also sounds like you relied on other people who were homeless to keep you safe and those people would be criminals under this law too.
So does that mean you made bad choices?
Well done, man! 👏
It certainly can be done – choosing to do the hard work to escape homelessness without support. The real question is, would there be anything for you to be proud of if it was merely a decision that you made? And in one of the wealthiest nations in the world, should you have to do all that, simply to reclaim a roof over your head? I’d imagine that if you could have avoided homelessness in the first place, you would have. That was not your choice. You certainly wouldn’t have been able to hold down a job if you couldn’t stay near it long enough to get back on your feet, and you can’t work from jail, that’s for sure.
So great work, but the mere fact that your story is worth celebrating is a case against your own argument. 👏
It’s simply, incomprehensible to me that courts can be so arrogantly presumptuous, as to “know” that homelessness is not a “state of being” but a choice. After working with thousands of folks living in encampments throughout Seattle, I’m quite convinced that, almost universally, they never chose the streets, the streets chose them.
Mayor Harrell’s statement, that they “lead with offering shelter” is misleading. When they sweep a camp, they rarely have as many shelter beds to offer as there are people who get displaced. Homeless camp “resolution” as practiced in Seattle is certainly cruel, but not unusual.
Shelters are usually where the drugs are at, what are they even talking about. I stayed away from shelters when I was homeless because they’re full of insane people on drugs. Not to mention diseases and bugs. It’s inhumane, I was FAR better off on my own.
> Many shelters have strict abstinence or behavioral policies that make them inappropriate with addiction or mental illness. Many are individual or single-gender shelters that require people to leave their partners; many ban pets or do not allow people to bring more than a few possessions.
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> Additionally, shelters are often located far away from the places homeless people live.
These sentences are exactly why “adequate shelter” is an impossible constitutional standard to meet