Homelessness is on the upward thrust in the US, and in some puts, it’s turning into extra not unusual for the police to arrest any person for dozing or residing in a public area.
In June 2024, the Ideally suited Court docket issued a ruling, Grants Move v. Johnson, that decided it’s constitutional to factor citations to or arrest homeless other folks, even if there is not any to be had safe haven.
The ruling reversed previous federal appeals court docket rulings from 2019 and 2022 that decided towns can’t implement anti-camping regulations in opposition to homeless other folks if there aren’t sufficient safe haven beds to be had for them.
The Ideally suited Court docket’s ruling additionally decided that the 8th Modification’s prohibition on merciless and odd punishments does no longer give protection to homeless other folks from regulations criminalizing resting in public puts.
As any person who has spent greater than a decade researching homelessness and talking with unhoused communities, I’ve observed firsthand how enforcement of such regulations imposes unavoidable hardships on homeless other folks and makes it more difficult for them to discover a solid house.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass visits the website of a city-led sweep of a homeless encampment in Van Nuys, Calif., on July 31, 2025.
David Pashaee/Heart East Pictures/AFP by the use of Getty Pictures
A upward push in punitive motion in opposition to homelessness
In 2024, there have been an estimated 771,480 other folks within the U.S. who skilled homelessness on a unmarried night time, the easiest quantity ever recorded.
Since June 2024, virtually 220 native measures have handed that limit or ban acts like dozing, sitting or panhandling in public in towns that come with Phoenix; Gainesville, Florida, and Reno, Nevada.
The velocity of unsheltered homelessness, that means homeless people who find themselves dozing in puts that aren’t supposed for people to leisure in, like parks or automobiles, is the easiest in California.
Now not each and every chief has embraced this means of what some observers name criminalizing homelessness. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, for instance, rejected criminalizing homelessness as “backwards” in June 2024.
However, many towns are implementing present and new bans on homeless encampments extra aggressively than ahead of the Ideally suited Court docket determination – in spite of proof that such enforcement isn’t efficient in coping with the issue of homelessness.
The affects of competitive enforcement
Analysis presentations that arresting any person with no house for sitting, resting or dozing in a public position does no longer scale back homelessness.
As a substitute, encampment sweeps and tenting bans usually displace other folks from one house to any other, whilst discarding or destroying their private assets within the procedure, similar to id playing cards, drugs and dozing equipment.
This means additionally wastes public sources through paying teams to throw away other folks’s assets as an alternative of making an investment that cash into exact housing answers, like growing extra inexpensive housing choices.
Homeless encampment sweeps through police or different executive officers also are proven to make other folks residing in camps sicker, resulting in will increase in hospitalizations or even deaths amongst the ones depending on medicine or alcohol.
A punitive shift in San Francisco
San Francisco is an instance of an American metropolis with a fairly huge homeless inhabitants that has taken a extra competitive option to implementing bans on homeless encampments during the last yr.
A couple of weeks after the Ideally suited Court docket determination, then-San Francisco Mayor London Breed promised to be “very aggressive” in casting off homeless encampments. She additionally mentioned that “building more housing” would no longer resolve the homelessness disaster.
Town knowledge presentations that within the one year for the reason that Ideally suited Court docket ruling, San Francisco police had arrested greater than 1,000 homeless other folks for residing in a public area – a scale of enforcement hardly observed within the metropolis’s previous. Within the yr main as much as the ruling, 111 other folks have been arrested for unlawful accommodation
San Francisco recognized roughly 8,300 homeless metropolis citizens in 2024.
In June 2025, I carried out a survey of 150 homeless other folks in San Francisco. About 10% of the ones individuals who gave a reason why for a up to date arrest reported being jailed for accommodation with out permission. Every other 6% mentioned they have been arrested for trespassing.
In the similar survey, which is a part of an ongoing mission, 54% of homeless San Francisco citizens reported being compelled to transport from a public area once or more.
Every other 8% reported being cited for one more reason associated with trespassing.
A much less competitive trail in Portland
Different western American towns with huge homeless populations have taken relatively other approaches to casting off homelessness encampments since June 2024.
Portland, Oregon, for instance, started implementing a brand new daylight hours tenting ban in July 2024. However Portland police have best made 11 arrests of homeless other folks for camping-related violations during the last yr.
Different homeless other folks in Portland have won police citations for different offenses, like trespassing.
As a part of my June 2025 learn about, I surveyed 150 homeless Portland citizens. About 49% of respondents reported having been arrested in the future of their lives. Despite the fact that no respondents have been arrested for tenting in a prohibited position, 68% of other folks I spoke with reported that police or different executive officials compelled them to depart a public area in the future during the last yr.
And 13% of those that gave a reason why for being cited through police mentioned it was once for tenting in a prohibited position. Every other 11% of homeless other folks have been cited for another reason why associated with residing with out safe haven.
As a part of the learn about, I additionally interviewed citizens who have been arrested whilst residing in the street. One Portland resident I interviewed – who requested to not be named to maintain their anonymity – informed me they misplaced the danger to hire an condominium as a result of they have been arrested in 2023 on a preexisting, unrelated warrant after a police officer checked their ID – simply days ahead of they have been intended to pick out up their keys.
“Many unhoused people have warrants simply for failing to appear after being cited for sitting or resting in public space,” they mentioned. “I was supposed to go get the keys and, bam, I got picked up. I was arrested and went to court. Just me being in jail for five, six or five days screwed it all. I didn’t show up to get the keys, and then (the landlord) couldn’t get ahold of me, and they had no idea what was going on.”
The weeklong prison keep no longer best driven this individual again onto the road, however it additionally put them again onto a ready listing for housing – the place they continue to be in 2025.
A volunteer is helping an individual into his tent after relocating him from one park to any other in Grants Move, Oregon, in March 2024.
AP Photograph/Jenny Kane
Taking a look forward
The Ideally suited Court docket’s 2024 ruling didn’t mandate that towns criminalize homelessness. But it surely successfully gave towns the fairway mild to take action with out worry of violating other folks’s constitutional protections.
The results of this ruling shall be additional felt with President Donald Trump’s July 24, 2025, govt order that ended federal beef up for approaches like Housing First, a coverage that prioritizes offering homeless other folks with housing, ahead of another wanted assist. The order additionally requires involuntarily committing homeless other folks with psychological sickness to psychological well being establishments.
As extra towns imagine harder encampment ordinances, I believe it’s value taking into account if extra punitive measures in reality deal with homelessness. Many years of proof recommend they gained’t.
As a substitute, arresting homeless other folks ceaselessly deepens their poverty, will increase displacement and diverts public investment clear of the true resolution – solid, inexpensive housing.
