On April 22, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case about homelessness. It has the potential, the “Counsel of Record” explained, to expose a moral fault line in American culture.
What she means is this: do municipalities have the right to criminalize poverty? Or more precisely, can any jurisdiction create criminal penalties (fines and jail time) for sleeping in a public place when there is no other place to be?
This is what has been done by Grants Pass, a city in the southwest quadrant of Oregon. They have a population with nowhere to live and sleep. In an effort to push these poor people out of their community into some other jurisdiction, city authorities established penalties for sleeping in public.
Millions of people in the United States are homeless. Some are addicts and some are criminals. But many are working people, family people, school people, church people. Some are living in a car, many in a tent, others wide out in the open.
Ten percent of the work force at Disney World in Florida is homeless. My small church—Providence—serves a community—Hendersonville, North Carolina—which counts 323 homeless students in the public schools. By far, the largest portion of the homeless population is in California, with Texas and Florida close behind. Homeless camps can be found in every town in the United States.
In 2019, three homeless people filed suit in Grants Pass, claiming that the penalties for sleeping in public constitute, in fact, cruel and unusual punishment; that is, it constitutes financial and criminal penalties for simply being homeless. This, they assert, is a violation of the 8th amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
Which reads: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” (emphasis added).
These unhoused plaintiffs won their case in federal district court and then again in federal appeals court. The town of Grants Pass appealed their loss to the Supreme Court, which took the case. Oral arguments are scheduled for Monday morning April 22.
In a normal year, the Court will accept for oral arguments between 100 and 150 cases out of more than 7,000 presented to them. Getting your day in the big Court is no small thing!
Which is why both defendants and plaintiffs search for help when their appeal is accepted for argument. Which is how I came to know about this case in the first place.
The Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection is a non-profit organization associated with Georgetown University in Washington DC. It exists solely to argue cases before the Supreme Court, cases like City of Grants Pass vs Johnson and Logan, cases like this one, pitting homeless people against municipalities that have been unable to govern their communities in such as way as to take care of their poorest residents.
Homelessness itself, everywhere, points to the rising cost of housing, if there is even any housing available. It points also to the low wages that keep many people on the precipice of financial disaster. It highlights the fragile life situation that attends to many people, the vast majority of whom are neither addicted nor mentally ill.
Grants Pass wants to push their poor people out of their county and into the jurisdiction of some other local, state, or federal authority. If the Supreme Court overturns the district and appellate ruling, it will give every community permission to push their homeless … where, exactly?
It will create a human disaster, a moral crisis of gargantuan proportions. It will be a moral fault line in American culture.
I know all this because the lawyer assigned to argue this case before the Supreme Court is Kelsi Brown Corkran. She is designated, as I wrote at the top of the column, as the “Counsel of Record,” which is written at the top of her 82-page brief.
I read the whole thing, wrote down a dozen questions, and sent them to her this week. I did so because she sent me the brief on the same day she and I attended the bi-weekly Zoom prayer meeting of which we both are a part.
I said to her before our prayer, “What you are doing is the most important gospel work in America this month: more important than preachers, teachers, poets, and prophets. We need to pray for you.”
We did, and I do, and now, I invite you to pray for her, as well.
[Subscribe today to my free weekly commentary on religion and American life.]
On April 22, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case about homelessness. It has the potential, the “Counsel of Record” explained, to expose a moral fault line in American culture.
What she means is this: do municipalities have the right to criminalize poverty? Or more precisely, can any jurisdiction create criminal penalties (fines and jail time) for sleeping in a public place when there is no other place to be?
This is what has been done by Grants Pass, a city in the southwest quadrant of Oregon. They have a population with nowhere to live and sleep. In an effort to push these poor people out of their community into some other jurisdiction, city authorities established penalties for sleeping in public.
Millions of people in the United States are homeless. Some are addicts and some are criminals. But many are working people, family people, school people, church people. Some are living in a car, many in a tent, others wide out in the open.
Ten percent of the work force at Disney World in Florida is homeless. My small church—Providence—serves a community—Hendersonville, North Carolina—which counts 323 homeless students in the public schools. By far, the largest portion of the homeless population is in California, with Texas and Florida close behind. Homeless camps can be found in every town in the United States.
In 2019, three homeless people filed suit in Grants Pass, claiming that the penalties for sleeping in public constitute, in fact, cruel and unusual punishment; that is, it constitutes financial and criminal penalties for simply being homeless. This, they assert, is a violation of the 8th amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
Which reads: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted” (emphasis added).
These unhoused plaintiffs won their case in federal district court and then again in federal appeals court. The town of Grants Pass appealed their loss to the Supreme Court, which took the case. Oral arguments are scheduled for Monday morning April 22.
In a normal year, the Court will accept for oral arguments between 100 and 150 cases out of more than 7,000 presented to them. Getting your day in the big Court is no small thing!
Which is why both defendants and plaintiffs search for help when their appeal is accepted for argument. Which is how I came to know about this case in the first place.
The Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection is a non-profit organization associated with Georgetown University in Washington DC. It exists solely to argue cases before the Supreme Court, cases like City of Grants Pass vs Johnson and Logan, cases like this one, pitting homeless people against municipalities that have been unable to govern their communities in such as way as to take care of their poorest residents.
Homelessness itself, everywhere, points to the rising cost of housing, if there is even any housing available. It points also to the low wages that keep many people on the precipice of financial disaster. It highlights the fragile life situation that attends to many people, the vast majority of whom are neither addicted nor mentally ill.
Grants Pass wants to push their poor people out of their county and into the jurisdiction of some other local, state, or federal authority. If the Supreme Court overturns the district and appellate ruling, it will give every community permission to push their homeless … where, exactly?
It will create a human disaster, a moral crisis of gargantuan proportions. It will be a moral fault line in American culture.
I know all this because the lawyer assigned to argue this case before the Supreme Court is Kelsi Brown Corkran. She is designated, as I wrote at the top of the column, as the “Counsel of Record,” which is written at the top of her 82-page brief.
I read the whole thing, wrote down a dozen questions, and sent them to her this week. I did so because she sent me the brief on the same day she and I attended the bi-weekly Zoom prayer meeting of which we both are a part.
I said to her before our prayer, “What you are doing is the most important gospel work in America this month: more important than preachers, teachers, poets, and prophets. We need to pray for you.”
We did, and I do, and now, I invite you to pray for her, as well.
[Subscribe today to my free weekly commentary on religion and American life.]
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