Homelessness is a serious problem worldwide. Once fairly rare, it now is an
urgent problem in the United States, where the homeless population has surged
to record levels in 2023, especially in several western states, including California
and Oregon. Root causes can be traced primarily to mental health issues,
addictions, low incomes and especially the lack of affordable housing. Men are
more often homeless than women. People of American Indian, Alaskan Native,
or Indigenous descent, as well as people of Black, African American, or African
descent, also experience higher rates of homelessness than the overall population.
Residents of communities where homelessness has surged have urged politicians
to take steps to curb the problem. To reduce encampments or tent cities
and to appease their voting constituents, cities have enacted ordinances that
allow for both civil and criminal penalties for those sleeping out of doors. These
laws have been challenged in the courts, especially in the Pacific Northwest.
The homeless found sympathetic judges in the federal Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals, which in several cases held anti-camping ordinances violative of the
Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment. At the end
of the 2024 term, the conservative block of the United States Supreme Court
reversed the Ninth Circuit in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, thus allowing these
ordinances to stand. The author believes, as did the dissenters in this case, that
penalizing the homeless is counter-productive and a better, less expensive, and
more compassionate long-term solution is for cities to adopt Housing First
policies, such as those in Finland and other European countries.
Key words: homelessness, poverty, criminalizing homelessness, America,
USA, Eighth Amendment, cruel and unusual punishments.