Supreme Court docket to resolve Oregon homelessness case
GRANTS PASS, Oregon — A pickleball game in this leafy Oregon community was suddenly interrupted one rainy weekend morning by the arrival of an ambulance. Paramedics rushed through the park toward a tent, one of dozens illegally erected by the town’s hundreds of homeless people, then play resumed as though nothing had happened.
Myles Baida plays pickleball as emergency responders put a homeless person in an ambulance March 23 in Grants Pass, Ore. Relatives had called police and requested a welfare check.
Mere feet away, volunteers helped dismantle tents to move an 80-year-old man and a woman blind in one eye, who risked being fined for staying too long. In the distance, a group of boys climbed on a jungle gym.
The scenes were emblematic of the crisis gripping the small, Oregon mountain town of Grants Pass, where a fierce fight over park space has become a battleground for a much larger, national debate on homelessness that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
A volunteer holds on to a wheelchair as Max Hartfelt is helped into his tent after being relocated from one park to another March 23 in Grants Pass, Ore. The rural community has become the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis as its case over anti-camping laws goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The town’s case, set to be heard April 22, has broad implications for how not only Grants Pass, but communities nationwide address homelessness, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. It has made the town of 40,000 the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis, and further fueled the debate over how to deal with it.
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Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol visits Tussing Park on March 22 in Grants Pass, Ore.
“I certainly wish this wasn’t what my town was known for,” Mayor Sara Bristol told The Associated Press last month. “It’s not the reason why I became mayor. And yet it has dominated every single thing that I’ve done for the last 3 ½ years.”
Officials across the political spectrum — from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, which has nearly 30% of the nation’s homeless population, to a group of 22 conservative-led states — have filed briefs in the case, saying lower court rulings have hamstrung their ability to deal with encampments.
Like many Western communities, Grants Pass has struggled for years with a burgeoning homeless population. A decade ago, City Council members discussed how to make it “uncomfortable enough … in our city so they will want to move on down the road.” From 2013 to 2018, the city said it issued 500 citations for camping or sleeping in public, including in vehicles, with fines that could reach hundreds of dollars.
A vehicle at left drives down Rogue River Highway as light shines on the area March 23 in Grants Pass, Ore.
But a 2018 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals changed the calculus. The court, whose jurisdiction includes nine Western states, held that while communities are allowed to prohibit tents in public spaces, it violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment to give people criminal citations for sleeping outside when they had no place else to go.
Four years later, in a case challenging restrictions in Grants Pass, the court expanded that ruling, holding that civil citations also can be unconstitutional.
Civil rights groups and attorneys for the homeless residents who challenged the restrictions in 2018 insist people shouldn’t be punished for lacking housing. Officials throughout the West have overstated the impact of the court decisions to distract from their own failings, they argued.
“For years, political leaders have chosen to tolerate encampments as an alternative to meaningfully addressing the western region’s severe housing shortage,” the attorneys wrote. “It is easier to blame the courts than to take responsibility for finding a solution.”
In Grants Pass, the town’s parks, many lining the picturesque Rogue River, are at the heart of the debate. Cherished for their open spaces, picnic tables, playgrounds and sports fields, they host everything from annual boat-racing festivals and vintage car shows to Easter egg hunts and summer concerts.
Brian Wright, center, prays during bible study at Gospel Rescue Mission on March 21 in Grants Pass, Ore.
They’re also the sites of encampments blighted by illegal drug use and crime, including a shooting at a park last year that left one person dead. Tents cluster along riverbanks, next to tennis courts and jungle gyms, with tarps shielding belongings from the rain. When the sun comes out, clothes and blankets are strung across tree branches to dry. Used needles litter the ground.
Grants Pass has one overnight shelter for adults, the Gospel Rescue Mission. It has 138 beds, but rules including attendance at daily Christian services, no alcohol, drugs or smoking and no pets mean many won’t stay there.
Cassy Leach, a nurse, leads a volunteer group providing food, medical care and other basic goods to the town’s hundreds of homeless people. They help relocate their tents to comply with city rules.
Cassy Leach, a nurse who leads a group of volunteers who provide food, medical care and other basic goods to the hundreds of homeless people living in the parks, talks to Kimberly Marie, who is homeless and camping in Fruitdale Park on March 21 in Grants Pass, Ore.
At one park last month, she checked on a man who burned his leg after falling on a torch lighter during a fentanyl overdose and brought him naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal medication. In another, she distributed cans of beans, peas and Chef Boyardee mini ravioli from a pickup truck.
“Love, hope, community and a safety net is really as important as a shower and water,” Leach said.
Dre Buetow, 48, from northern California, has been living in his car for three years after a bone cancer diagnosis and $450,000 in medical bills. The illness and treatment kept him from returning to his old tree-trimming job, he said.
Laura Gutowski’s husband died from a pulmonary embolism and she suddenly found herself, in her 50s, with no income. They didn’t have life insurance or savings and, within a month, she was sleeping outside.
“I used to love camping,” she said through tears. “And now I can’t stand it anymore.”
But some residents want to limit aid because of the trash left behind after encampment moves or food handouts. The City Council proposed requiring outreach groups to register with the city. The mayor vetoed it, laying bare the discord gripping Grants Pass.
Before the council attempted, unsuccessfully, to override the veto last month, a self-proclaimed “park watch” group rallied outside City Hall with signs reading, “Parks are for kids.”
The group regularly posts images of trash, tents and homeless people on social media. On Sundays, they set up camp chairs in what they say is a bid to reclaim park space.
Brock Spurgeon says he used to take his grandkids to parks that were so full it was hard to find an available picnic table. Now, open drug use and discarded needles have scared families away, he said.
“That was taken away from us when the campers started using the parks,” he said.
Homeless encampment sweeps spike in cities across US as housing crisis grows
Michael Johnson gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco on Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone.
Roxanne Simonson, 60, removes her long-sleeve shirt July 27 after being told by Rapid Response Bio Clean that she has 72 hours to vacant her illegal campsite in Portland, Ore. Simonson has been homeless for two years.
Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend July 27 before Rapid Response Bio Clean removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore. Taylor says that he has had to move three times since becoming homeless. Tent encampments have long been a fixture of West Coast cities, but are now spreading visibly across the U.S. The federal count of homeless people reached 580,000 last year, driven by lack of affordable housing and a pandemic that economically wrecked households.
Prohibited items that have been collected by Rapid Response Bio Clean while cleaning homeless camps sit on a table in the company warehouse in Portland, Ore., on July 27, 2023. Weapons, car parts and drug paraphernalia are not allowed to be returned to people whose items have been confiscated during a sweep.
A San Francisco Police Department vehicle drives through a homeless encampment being cleaned up in San Francisco on Aug. 29, 2023. Records obtained by The Associated Press show attempts to clear encampments increased in cities from Los Angeles to New York as public pressure grew to address what are dangerous and unsanitary living conditions. But despite tens of millions of dollars spent in recent years, there appears to be little reduction in the number of tents propped up on sidewalks, in parks and by freeway off-ramps.
Members of the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team’s Encampment Resolution Team walk toward an encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.
Two small stones that say “hope” and “peace” respectively and two flowers lay inside a circle of rocks on the ground in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 17, 2023. The rock circle is next to the site of a former homeless encampment that was cleared several times over the course of the year. With homelessness on the rise in the U.S. and a lack of affordable housing, cities and states are cracking down on mushrooming tent encampments.
Roughly 30 large boulders occupy the narrow strip of land between a sidewalk and a parking lot wall in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 17, 2023. The boulders were installed sometime after late July at the site of a former homeless encampment to prevent tents from being set back up. The encampment was cleared several times over the course of the year.
San Francisco Public Works crew load a truck while cleaning items from a homeless encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco on Aug. 29, 2023. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone.
A woman gathers possessions to take before a homeless encampment was cleaned up in San Francisco, Aug. 29, 2023.
Members of the San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team’s Encampment Resolution Team speak with people at an encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.
A San Francisco Public Works crew cleans items from a homeless encampment in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.
Maurice Palmer waits with his possessions as a homeless encampment is cleaned up in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.
Francis Zamora, of Department of Emergency Management, walks past a puddle near a homeless encampment being cleaned up in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.
A man pushes items while a homeless encampment is being cleaned up in San Francisco Aug. 29, 2023.
Roughly 30 large boulders occupy the narrow strip of land between a sidewalk and a parking lot wall in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 17, 2023. The boulders were installed sometime after late July at the site of a former homeless encampment to prevent tents from being set back up. The encampment was cleared several times over the course of the year. Cities across the U.S. are struggling with and cracking down on tent encampments as the number of homeless people grows, largely due to a lack of affordable housing. Homeless people and their advocates say sweeps are cruel and costly, and there aren’t enough homes or beds for everyone.
Amber Nastasia from Rapid Response Bio Clean cleans a homeless camp July 27 in Portland, Ore.
Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend July 27 before Rapid Response Bio Clean removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore.
Will Taylor, 32, cleans up the campsite of a friend before Rapid Response Bio Clean removes the belongings during a sweep in Portland, Ore., July 27, 2023. T
Amber Nastasia from Rapid Response Bio Clean cleans a homeless camp in Portland, Ore., on July 27, 2023.
Amber Nastasia, left, and Jacob Miller from Rapid Response Bio Clean clean a homeless camp in Portland, Ore., Thursday, July 27, 2023.
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