Grant’s Pass v Johnson: How Does the Decision Impact California

California accounts for 24% of the nation’s unhoused population, according to US News’ 2024 estimates. That’s why in June 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom celebrated the Supreme Court’s conservative ruling on the case Grants Pass v. Johnson, which allowed cities to penalize homeless individuals for sleeping or living in public spaces. Newsom said the decision “removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common-sense measures to protect the safety and well-being of our communities.” He is enthusiastic that California cities now have the opportunity to clear homeless encampments without facing legal complications.
But how did this case appear before the Supreme Court, and how has the tiny town of Grants Pass, Oregon, changed California’s approach to tackling their homelessness crisis so drastically? It began when the town began issuing tickets to homeless people found sleeping on park benches, sidewalks, and in other public areas.
The reason for the tickets was that the town’s municipal code contained strict ordinances banning people from sleeping or camping in parks and on public property. There were anywhere from 50 to 600 homeless people in Grants Pass, and the city had a limited amount of space in shelters. Social Science teacher Ms. Serene Williams gave context noting Grants Pass’ position off of Highway 5, which means “it gets a lot of people even though it’s a very small town, [so] also an issue with reducing [homelessness] is that so many people are coming in.”
Around the same time in 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court held in Martin v. Boise that the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause barred cities from enforcing anti-camping laws if there were fewer “practically available” shelter beds than there were homeless individuals.
Shortly after this decision, several other similar suits arose, including one in Grants Pass. Two homeless individuals, Gloria Johnson and John Logan, filed suit on behalf of “all involuntarily homeless people living in Grants Pass.” The US District Court of Oregon found that ticketing homeless people sleeping in public spaces was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment because there was not enough space for them in shelters.
The City of Grants Pass appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed Martin v. Boise in a 6-3 ruling in 2024. Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson were dissenting.
This will lead to a large amount of policy change in 2025, especially in California. Already, Santa Clara County has passed a new ordinance banning camping along nearly 300 miles of creeks, which went into effect on January 2. There are an estimated 700 homeless people living by these creeks, who will be given fines, jail time, or required community service hours if they are unable to vacate the premises.
This decision has divided the Democratic party, with some, including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote in her dissent that “The City of Grants Pass jails and fines those people for sleeping anywhere in public at any time, including in their cars, if they use as little as a blanket to keep warm or a rolled-up shirt as a pillow. For people with no access to shelter, that punishes them for being homeless.” Others, like Representative Cori Bush, argue that rather than “criminalize homelessness and ban the unhoused from our communities, we should invest in the proven solutions to ending poverty and homelessness for good.”
However, there are others like Newsom who support the decision. This includes Former San Francisco Mayor London Breed, who counters that the decision “will help cities like San Francisco manage [their] public spaces more effectively and efficiently.”
But the question remains as to how this decision will impact California, and specifically the Bay Area. Williams said in an interview that the case sets a “precedent saying it’s not the state’s obligation to provide for [homeless individuals in] camps.” She connected this to the recent fires in LA, posing the question: “what do you do with the thousands of people in LA who are displaced? Is it the state’s obligation to provide for them? The Grants Pass holding says, well, no.”
But, as for the future, with the effects of this case now a distinct feature of policy making on both the local and national levels, Williams said “we know [it’ll] be a huge issue, [with] the precedent saying it’s not the state’s obligation to provide the camp.” But she also mentioned, in regards to the case’s effects, “we just can’t really predict it.”