Crisis in the Northwest: City's battle against homelessness could have dire effects for the nation

Homeless encampments could balloon nationwide or be cleared more aggressively in some states depending on how the Supreme Court rules on a case being argued Monday.

"I think people understand that we all need a safe place to live," Ed Johnson, director of litigation at the Oregon Law Center, told Fox News Digital. "The worst way to work toward that shared goal … is to ticket and arrest people who are just trying to stay alive."

Grants Pass v. Johnson asks whether some laws regulating camping on public property violate the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

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The Oregon Law Center filed the original lawsuit in 2018 when plaintiff Debra Blake claimed Grants Pass, a Southern Oregon city of around 40,000 residents, was "trying to run homeless people out of town" by fining people for sleeping outside. Blake has since died and a different homeless woman, Gloria Johnson (no relation to Ed), took on the mantle.

"What the city has done and what they want to do is make it illegal for someone to cover themselves with a blanket so that they don't die of hypothermia, on every inch of city land, 24 hours a day," said Johnson, who will sit at the counsel table supporting a Washington D.C.-based attorney who will argue on behalf of homeless residents.

Theane Evangelis, who will argue for Grants Pass, disagreed with Johnson's characterization of the case.

"These laws are an important tool for cities," Evangelis said. "They are a last resort, not a first resort, as cities try to get people the help that they need and to address the really immediate threats to health and safety."

Just before the Grants Pass suit was filed, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a different case, Martin v. City of Boise. Under the Eighth Amendment, cities can't enforce anti-camping ordinances if there aren't any shelter beds available, the court found.

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In 2020, a district court in Southern Oregon ruled Grants Pass' anti-camping ordinances were similarly a form of cruel and unusual punishment. Grants Pass appealed to the 9th Circuit, which encompasses nine Western states. There, a three-judge panel upheld the decision, writing that Grants Pass' regulations were unconstitutional in part because the number of homeless residents far outnumbers available shelter beds.

If the Supreme Court agrees with the lower courts, critics of Oregon's homeless policies have a dire warning for the rest of the nation.

"What's going on on the West Coast is what's coming to a neighborhood near you," Brian Bouteller, executive director of the Gospel Rescue Mission in Grants Pass, told Fox News.

9th Circuit decision ‘caused widespread paralysis’ in homeless policy, critics say

Oregon's homeless population has grown 37.4% from 2020 to 2023, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. At the same time, state and local spending on housing and other homeless services has skyrocketed.

The state has the second-highest percentage of homeless residents who are unsheltered (64.6%), behind only California (68%).

The 9th Circuit's decision "caused widespread paralysis" in cities' handling of homelessness and has had "harmful effects" up and down the West Coast, Evangelis said.

"These decisions are harming the very people they were meant to help," she said. "It's unacceptable to leave people in dangerous encampments. It's unacceptable, as a society, for us to continue to condone this sort of human suffering."

Encampments in places like Portland have been plagued by hygiene issues, drug overdoses, violence and fires. In 2021, nearly half of all fires in the city started in or near homeless camps, local media reported. At least 315 homeless people died in 2022 in Multnomah County, where Portland is located, according to a report from the county. About half of those deaths were from unintentional injury — mostly drug overdoses — and 8% were from homicide.

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Leaders across the political spectrum, from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in California, to a coalition of 24 Republican attorneys general, have filed briefs in support of Grants Pass, saying the 9th Circuit overstepped by wresting control of homelessness policy away from local governments.

State and local government officials often cite the Boise decision and Grants Pass case as reasons they can't get stricter about public camping. Johnson, the Oregon Law Center litigation director, said that's a cop-out.

"We've gotten ourselves into this fix through decades of failed policy that both parties have shared in," he said. "I think that it's easier for politicians to blame a court decision, even if when you look at that decision, it makes no sense."

The Grants Pass case is narrowly tailored and doesn't block cities from moving camps or banning tents, Johnson said, nor does it apply when there is available shelter space.

"If someone is offered shelter, and they decline it, they could still be ticketed and arrested under this decision," he said. "In Grants Pass … there are no available shelter beds for people. And so that issue hasn't come up in Grants Pass itself."

But Bouteller, who operates the city's only overnight homeless shelter, called Johnson's framing "manipulative hogwash."

The Gospel Rescue Mission offers 138 shelter beds in addition to a 12-bed women's transitional house, Bouteller said. The Christian nonprofit typically sheltered 500-700 individuals a year until the city's anti-camping ordinances were deemed unconstitutional.

Fewer people walked through the Gospel Rescue Mission's doors, and the population in the parks grew, Bouteller said.

"I have been at less than half full since 2020," he said.

SUPREME COURT TO DECIDE IF CITY'S HOMELESS POLICIES ARE CRUEL AND UNUSUAL:

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Bouteller also rejected Johnson's claim that the case is solely about sleeping.

"It doesn't cost us tens of thousands of dollars every year to clean up after sleeping in our parks," he said. "We're not afraid of our children playing in the playground and accidentally getting poked by someone's pillow."

"This is an issue of vandalism. Human trafficking. Lots and lots of drug trafficking," he added.

‘It’s not like they have anywhere else to go'

Dr. Bruce Murray has worked in refugee camps across Asia, Africa and Europe, providing medical care to those who lack not only shelter, but basic safety.

The conditions he sees volunteering with the homeless in Grants Pass are shockingly similar — minor scrapes and pokes that can become life-threatening infections within a matter of days, untreated diabetes, heart disease and weather-related conditions like hypothermia, trench foot and even frozen limbs requiring amputation. 

"Living outside in tents is not a joy," Murray said. "And I think that's one of the myths is people choose to live this lifestyle. They're not the ones that I see."

Murray and a team of volunteers drive a medical van to four parks, where much of the city’s growing homeless population have staked out tents. In a single day, they can provide basic care for minor wounds or chronic illnesses and triage patients with more severe needs. They can arrange follow-up visits and get to know people’s unique medical needs over time.

If the Supreme Court sides with Grants Pass, Murray worries the homeless patients he sees will scatter, possibly into the heavily-wooded mountains nearby, sparking additional concerns about wildfire risks.

"I worry that access to care … is going to be much more difficult to assure if they criminalize living in parks," he said. "It’s not like they have anywhere else to go."

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Murray said the Gospel Rescue Mission does "an excellent job of providing safe shelter" and serves "an important purpose."

But the shelter has many rules for residents, including a ban on drugs and alcohol, mandating attendance at religious services and prohibiting men and women from cohabitating. Those restrictions don't work for everyone, he said.

And some people around the state have told Fox News Digital they prefer living outside, either because it gives them the freedom to do what they want or because they've been homeless so long they don't know any other way to live.

"I couldn't handle the four walls, the limitations and the lack of nature," Ressa, who has been homeless for around a decade, told Fox News Digitalin January. She has been living in a massive encampment in a park just across the river from the state capital in Salem. 

A man named Seven, who has been homeless since 2006, concurred. "I'm not used to" being inside, he said.

While Bouteller agreed that the region needs more services, he said lack of shelter beds isn't the main issue.

"There's enough shelter beds for the folks that want to leave homelessness," he said. "Those folks that are in the park … do not all want to leave homelessness."

Oregon's path forward

While the Grants Pass case has been playing out, Oregon lawmakers passed a bill in 2021 that requires local laws regulating sitting, lying and sleeping on public property to be "objectively reasonable as to time, place and manner." Then-House Speaker Tina Kotek, a Democrat who is now Oregon's governor, championed the bill.

In response, Portland leaders passed an ordinance banning people from blocking access to businesses or sidewalks with tents from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. The Oregon Law Center swiftly blocked the ordinance with a separate suit, alleging the restrictions violate the state constitution and existing laws.

Johnson declined to talk in detail about that ongoing case.

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No matter what the Supreme Court rules, Grants Pass will still have to follow state law.

Click here to hear more from those involved in the case.

Ramiro Vargas contributed to the accompanying video.