At the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson (Grants Pass) that unhoused people can be cited, fined, and arrested for sleeping in public— on the street, in a tent, or even in their car. This ruling overturned a series of cases from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had held that such penalties are unconstitutional, cruel, and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment because a person should not be punished for sleeping in public if they have no other place to sleep. The new ruling in Grants Pass means jurisdictions do not need to show the availability of shelter beds before they sweep encampments, issue citations, and arrest unhoused people merely for sleeping. However, just because local governments can does not mean they should. We call on our local leaders to reject such inhumane and counterproductive measures.

The effects of Grants Pass are already beginning to be felt. In San Francisco, a court has lifted an injunction against encampment sweeps. Here in Silicon Valley, the Santa Clara Valley Water District considered an ordinance last Tuesday to ban camping on creeks and waterways. While the vote on the ordinance was delayed following public backlash, these actions signify the need to remain vigilant as jurisdictions consider aggressive penalties in the wake of Grants Pass. 

Research has shown that homelessness is a housing problem, not a choice. While vulnerabilities like job loss or medical bills may be the triggers that push individuals into homelessness, only high rent and the shortage of affordable housing can explain the causes of regional homelessness crises like ours. So, without building more affordable housing, removing encampments only means moving encampments. We know that properly funding a comprehensive approach, including homelessness prevention, services, interim shelters, permanent supportive housing, tenant protections, and affordable housing development and preservation, is effective. Enforcing public sleeping bans would waste public dollars on an ineffective approach rather than funding these solutions that Silicon Valley direly needs. 

In fact, punishment makes it harder for people to escape homelessness. Pushing unhoused people around to different cities, fining them for the basic right to sleep, and forcing them into the trauma of incarceration exacerbates their instability. Multiple studies have shown that fines and incarceration only reinforce vicious cycles of homelessness.  
Criminalizing homelessness wastes taxpayer dollars and fails to solve the problem. While the Grants Pass decision sadly permits this approach, it does not mandate it. Cities can and should commit to humane and effective solutions, like tenant protections and building more affordable housing. On the regional level, the $20 billion Bay Area Affordable Housing Bond — Regional Measure 4 (RM 4) — on the ballot this November would produce and preserve tens of thousands of affordable homes. In the wake of this ruling, we must advance effective policies like these to ensure everyone has a place to call home— we must not waste public dollars punishing people for our own failure to adequately invest in proven solutions.