Cities across America increasingly grapple with people living on their streets, and court rulings have made it hard to enforce laws against public camping. A series of decisions by the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, for instance, determined that clearing homeless encampments is an unconstitutional form of punishment. Now Boise, Idaho, as part of a ten-year legal fight, is appealing to the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by the Ninth Circuit that effectively bars the city from cleaning up camp sites on public property. How the case turns out may determine whether cities have powers to police their streets amid a sharp rise in public camping and sleeping.
At the heart of the Ninth Circuit's ruling is the liberal thesis that homelessness is an economic problem driven by high housing costs. Several homeless people sued Boise in 2009, alleging that the city did not have the right to remove them from the streets when they had no other housing options. A lower court ruled in the city's favor, but the Ninth Circuit reversed that decision and held that the city was “criminalizing” homelessness “on the false premise they [the homeless] had a choice in the matter.” The court essentially accepted the argument that enforcement actions against the homeless plaintiffs constitute cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Homeless advocates also argued that police actions give the homeless arrest records, making it hard for them to find jobs and housing.
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