Pro-homeless types are freaking out that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of Johnson vs. Grants Pass, Oregon. At long last, we’re going to see a resolution of a question municipalities like Oakland have dodged for years: Does a city have the right to manage homeless encampments on public property, or is it helpless in the face of the 8th Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment?
This question has gone unresolved for going on six years now, ever since the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the city of Boise, Idaho violated the 8th Amendment when it tried to compel tent campers to leave public property, in the case known as Martin v. Boise.
Six camper plaintiffs (the “Martin” in the ruling) sued Boise in 2014, and eventually won their case. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the 9th Circuit’s ruling, meaning that it stood and still stands. Ever since, cities in the 9th Circuit’s territory—most of the Western U.S.—have declared themselves legally unable to roust encampments, and have therefore allowed tent cities to spread, as we sadly see in Oakland.
The Grants Pass case evolved from Martin v. Boise, and we have to thank Gov. Newsom and Mayor London Breed for pushing it back to the Supreme Court. SCOTUS won’t rule until next summer, but the smart money predicts that the conservative-dominated High Court will rule that cities do have the right to manage their streets and parks and, thus, are legally permitted to evict homeless people without necessarily offering them an alternative place to live.
But, as I said, the powerful pro-homeless lobby is freaking out. Groups such as the National Homeless Law Center and San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness, anticipating a severe SCOTUS setback, already are forward-planning how to get around or ignore it. A spokesman for the National Homeless Law Center said, “This case [Grants Pass] is a disaster…we'll be left with this post-apocalyptic hellscape.”
Well, come to the Oakland flatlands if you want to see a “post-apocalyptic hellscape.” It’s terribly sad that it’s come down to the rights of the majority of us to live in clean, safe neighborhoods, versus the rights of homeless people, the majority of whom are drug and/or alcohol addicts who have chosen to live their unusual lifestyle. I wish it weren’t so, but here we are. It’s very hard not to perceive encampments as canker sores on the body politic that don’t belong here and should not and cannot be allowed to spread. But since our enlightened leaders have refused to deal with encampments despite the hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars spent on mitigating them, we will soon have the right to force campers to leave and even to take down their encampments if they refuse to do so. Which leaves the Big Question: Will Oakland’s leadership, comprised of some of the most woke radicals in America, nullify the Supreme Court’s [expected] ruling and continue to coddle the homeless? Or will they yield to the Constitution, and to the people’s will, and finally clear our streets and parks? I think we all know the answer, which is why these Price and Thao Recalls are underway, with more to follow.