Antonio de Viche, a homeless resident of San José, prefers the streets to a shelter or temporary housing, where he does not feel safe. But that could all change with today’s Supreme Court decision that will allow cities to ban homeless people from sleeping outdoors.
The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that it is not unconstitutional for cities across the country to cite homeless people for camping on public property. In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, a group of homeless people in a small Oregon town argued that their city’s rules on homelessness violated the Eighth Amendment as cruel and unusual punishment. But the majority of the court disagrees.
People like De Viche, 57 and homeless for about nine years, will now find themselves in uncharted territory. De Viche said there are often rats in shelters. He said he once saw a person get stabbed with scissors, so he would rather take his chances on the streets, sleeping in different places each night to avoid trouble. When he needs it, he pays for temporary accommodation, such as hotel rooms, using his own money when he can.
“(Shelters are) a little chaotic because if you’ve been homeless on the street (and) you put (homeless people) inside an apartment complex, a lot of them don’t forget their bad habits,” Foco San Jose said.
San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said the ruling will not change the city’s existing homeless strategy but will impose a phased approach. First, the city repeatedly offers resources and shelter, then people in the camps who refuse services will be swept away, and lastly, people without shelter may be cited or arrested.
The San Jose Police Department, which conducts raids and issues citations, was not available for comment.
Mahan said that when given the choice between sheltering or being swept away, most homeless people chose shelter, often creating a waiting list of hundreds of people. Now, after the ruling, he is asking the California legislature to create a state plan to address homelessness similar to San Jose’s strategy of increasing shelters and supports, such as safe places to sleep.
“The common-sense approach is to require cities and counties across the state to build enough shelters, beds and treatment centers for those who need them and then require that they be used,” he said.
The ruling comes after Mahan ramped up raids, creating “no return zones,” after San Jose was ordered to clear encampments along canals by the state water board. The city has the fourth-largest homeless population per capita in the country, with about 6,340 homeless people out of 9,903 homeless people in Santa Clara County, according to the county’s 2023 Point-in-Time Count, a biennial survey of the region’s homeless residents.
The court’s decision is generating mixed reactions from defenders and other officials.
Jennifer Hark Dietz, executive director of the homeless nonprofit People Assisting the Homeless (PATH), said the punitive measures that could be applied under the ruling are not the solution for homeless people.
“Punishing people for not having shelter is cruel and will not end our homelessness crisis,” she told San José Spotlight. “As an organization dedicated to ending homelessness, PATH will continue to advocate for housing and services, not handcuffs.”
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San Jose is also working to increase shelters and housing for homeless people and plans to add more than 1,200 shelter spaces over the next year, including hundreds of modular homes and safe places to sleep, the mayor said.
The ruling also means that cities in the county can apply different measures to address homelessness, potentially creating a patchwork of laws across cities.
County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Susan Ellenberg said she doesn’t want the ruling to increase punitive measures for homeless people, but instead wants cities in the county to increase housing resources for homeless residents.
“I hope that our community’s elected leaders will behave like the good actors I believe they are and continue to focus on finding real solutions to homelessness rather than pointing to this decision as a license to simply sweep people out of sight,” she told San Jose Spotlight.
De Viche said he has mixed feelings about the ruling. For now she will continue living on the street.
“I don’t know if it’s fair, but it’s part of life,” he said. “You have to follow the law.”
Contact Annalize Freimarck at [email protected] or continue @analise_ellen on X, formerly known as Twitter.
