By Farah Hasssen
It’s hard enough not having a safe place to live. Now it’s easier for cities to arrest you for it.
“I am afraid at all times,” testified Debra Blake, who’d been forced to live outside in Grants Pass, Oregon for eight years after losing her job and housing. Her disability disqualified her from staying in the town’s only shelter. “I could be arrested, ticketed, and prosecuted for sleeping outside or for covering myself with a blanket to stay warm,” she said.
In 2018, after being banished from every park in town and accruing thousands in fines, she sued the city as part of a class action suit for violating homeless residents’ constitutional rights. The Oregon District Court agreed in 2020 that the city’s actions constituted “cruel and unusual punishment.”
Sadly, Blake died before seeing the results.
But Grants Pass appealed the decision all the way to the Supreme Court. The billionaire-backed justices ruled this summer that unhoused people aren’t included in the Constitution’s protections against “cruel and unusual punishment,” overturning a federal appeals court.
But punishing people for our country’s failure to ensure adequate housing for all is inherently “cruel and unusual.” Widespread homelessness directly violates the human right to housing under international law, which must be recognized in the United States.
The Court’s ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, “leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested.” Fines and arrests on a person’s record, in turn, make it more difficult to get out of poverty and into stable housing.
The decision comes as housing is increasingly unaffordable in our increasingly unequal nation. Today, a person who works full-time and earns a minimum wage cannot afford a safe place to live almost anywhere in the country.
With half of all renter households now spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing, millions are one emergency away from homelessness. According to federal data, last year over 650,000 Americans experienced homelessness on a given night — a 12 percent increase from 2022. Nearly half sleep outside.
Research confirms what should be obvious: unaffordable housing and homelessness are intertwined. A lack of adequate health care and social safety net supports further compound the problem.
Hedge funds and private equity firms have also driven up housing costs since gaining control over a greater share of the market. Blackstone alone owns and manages over 300,000 units, making it the nation’s largest landlord. This financialization of housing treats a basic necessity and fundamental human right as just another commodity.
Cities and states face complex challenges in responding to homelessness. But experts have long documented that the real solution is affordable housing and supportive services, not punishment. Housing those in need ultimately costs less than imprisoning them, both financially and morally.
Despite the Court’s abhorrent decision, cities and states aren’t required to prosecute the unhoused. Instead, they should double down on proven and humane solutions like Housing First, which provides permanent housing without preconditions, coupled with supportive services.
Guaranteed income programs offer another promising and cost-effective solution. Denver’s innovative, no-strings-attached cash assistance to 807 unhoused participants helped increase their access to housing within one year, while decreasing nights spent unsheltered and reducing reliance on emergency services.
Congress must also do more to invest in all those who call America home.
Currently, only one in four eligible households receive federal rental assistance. Housing rights organizations like the National Homelessness Law Center recommend that Congress invest at least $356 billion on measures like universal rental assistance, expanding the national Housing Trust Fund, and eviction and homelessness prevention.
It will take a broad-based movement to achieve these goals and counter the Court’s latest cruelty against everyone who struggles to get by in America. But the impacts of housing are just as wide-ranging and consequential — from our health to education, security, economic mobility, and even our dignity.
Farrah Hassen, J.D., is a writer, policy analyst, and adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Cal Poly Pomona. Born in the United Arab Emirates, raised in the United States, Farrah holds a Master’s in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2007.
JimboXYZ says
What can you do ? Build luxury apartment complexes with unaffordable rent, then subsidize that with rent & food programs & destroy the environment while doing it ? There is no solution to any of it, the homeless, have they become anything more than pets, some get adopted others abused & neglected, & still in the streets fending for themselves ?
Jim says
Your position seems to be homelessness is just another problem that can’t be solved so why even bother trying. I don’t know how any human being can be that callous about others just because he personally has never been homeless.
Be sure to share your opinion with your reverend at church on Sunday. Maybe he feels the same way. After all, Jesus wouldn’t help out homeless folks, right?????
James says
Perhaps Jesus would say…
“Give a man a place to live and he has shelter for a day, teach a man to build his own so that he might never be without.”
Well, this is something that I think Jesus might say. But I realize the reality of the situation is such that there’s always more to a problem then meets the eye.
Personally, I am a strong advocate for the “small house movement.”
Which is actually (for me) just a return to a more sensible square footage in regards to housing size.
Many seem to gravitate to the extreme of under 500 square feet… a properly designed home of this size is indeed feasible to construct for a novice builder with some subcontracting help, but most local governments are not supportive of such public desires.
They perceive the square footage as at odds with there ideal growth model. That is, there future tax revenue models.
Personally, I’ve looked at several stock plans and I always seem to gravitate to those in the range of 500 to 1000 square feet. A 600 to 700 square foot home is still an undertaking that I’d be comfortable with building for myself… with appropriate help when necessary. If I can find the proper property to build it on… not easy.
What I’m driving at is that when the market doesn’t provide enough choices or alternatives, one must sometimes make them for yourself.
Do not rely on the government or others to provide you with them.
This is the old “Yankee” way, no?
This is part of a solution to the housing problem as I see it. Small houses can shelter both the young starting out in life (building wealth) or the elderly (looking to downsize).
Government seems to be in opposition to such efforts for too long they have focused on families, not the individual.
Just my opinion.
Forsee says
What a knee jerk (emphasis on jerk) reaction. Just look at the guy- not a drop of compassion? He looks almost dead. Pets? Luxury apartments? You’re dead inside.
R.S. says
Thank you for the column. It may come as a surprise to many, but affordable housing or even n0-cost housing is less expensive than the patchwork punitive system that we have now. Look it up: The dollars and cents of a life outside is also very high, with over $44,700 of taxpayer dollars spent a year on a single chronically homeless person. Thankfully, we know that the solution – housing – is far more affordable than the cost of the status quo.Oct 19, 2023
Sherry says
Thank you for your compassion, RS! Putting a roof over someone’s head is a great first step. I would like to add that “mental hospitals” being CLOSED. . . beginning with heartless Reagan. . . certainly need to be made available again. Along with that, intensive/long termed public drug rehab. facilities need to be made “easily” available.
Dmc says
He’s got his. I’ve got mine. Meet the decline
Robert Joseph Fortier says
The people who are disabled and cannot work should be helped out. People who simply choose not to work and take advantage of programs meant to assist the disabled or short term unemployed are in many cases lazy and taking advantage of their scam.
It may be a small percentage…maybe not…but it is there…. so there is that…
Anonymous says
There’s always going to be homelessness, because alot of the homeless would rather live outside, not in a house. You should try talking to homeless people and you’ll find out.
Pierre Tristam says
No reason to criminalize their status, no reason to reduce their numbers where possible, no reason to lay off building affordable housing, no reason to shrug off the problem and blame it in them.
Flagler County Citizen says
People experiencing homelessness do often say this, but it’s because alternatives are limited and real housing is out of reach. They will also tell you that living in the woods is no walk in the park. One man, before he died, told me about his experiences near people who suffered from schizophrenia–threatening to stab others, wildlife encounters, etc. He said he could stay at friends houses but came back to the woods. People, because they are indeed human, develop networks, survival skills, and routines out in the woods, yet we forget that with the multitude of “solutions” we force on them.
People need independence and privacy. They need to be able to process where they are in life. Most options force programs, sobriety, roommates, etc. on people who’ve dealt with a lot. Those options are not ideal, and therefore, they “choose” living in the woods. Addiction is one of the hardest to deal with, and there is a chicken and egg conundrum when people in the woods suffer from it (did the addiction bring them to the woods or did the woods bring them to addiction?).
More than that, though, when you speak with fresh new people living out in the woods you have a much better view of how and why more diverse houging options may reduce long-term instances of homelessness.
Al says
So the solution is that those who paid their mortgage and those that pay their rent on time need to take care of the ones that didn’t. How many of them were cool doing drugs or getting drunk and making fun of the fools that work? I have compassion for the truly disabled but the rest can stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.
If you feel so compassionate then take them into your home , feed and house them. You bleeding hearts won’t use all your resources but expect all others to chop in for your cause. We all have causes and this homeless thing is just like the illegals everyone wanted them in their cities till they showed up, then they weren’t so welcomed.
YankeeExPat says
In 2022, there were more than 580,000 individuals in need of housing in the United States. And while less than 10% of people in America are veterans, almost 13% of the adult population experiencing homelessness is made up of veterans.
According to the National Law Center of Homelessness and Poverty, the leading cause of homelessness is insufficient income and the lack of affordable housing. The reason for insufficient income can include loss of income, low wages, or unemployment.
In 2022, about 12.7 percent of Florida’s population lived below the poverty line.Jul 5, 2024
The Census Bureau estimates that 7.5% of veterans in 2022 (approximately 1.2 million) reported income below the poverty level. The poverty rate for the entire US civilian population over age 18 is 11.6%.Nov 10, 2023
Foresee says
It must have been the other Jesus who gave the Sermon On The Mount, the one about the Beatitudes.
(Matthew 5-1-12)
Ellen says
DeSantis wouldn’t help the homeless he wants them to be arrested which doesn’t solve the problem or he will rent bus and ship them to a Democratic state. He doesn’t know how to solve a problem, he is the cause of most of the problems in this state.
He has no compassion for human beings in need, he only hangs out with the white boys club. Incompetent should be added to his resume.
Skibum says
The availability of affordable housing to end the homeless crisis sounds wonderful as a concept, but, as is almost always the case with complex societal issues, housing is not and never has been the “one size fits all” solution to this problem. Sure, there are some who would jump at the chance to get off the streets given the opportunity to move into affordable housing, but there are so many more who are living this life who have addiction issues and/or mental health issues, there are those who have been released from prison after having completed their prison sentences for sex crimes who either cannot find appropriate living conditions per their parole requirements or just choose to live under the radar from law enforcement’s regular monitoring, there are those who have warrants and are fugitives or just plain criminals who think it is easier to hide themselves and their criminal behavior if they don’t have a defined address to be found at. I’m sure there are a mix of other reasons why those who are living in the brush, in vacant lots, along waterways, etc. might give for their reasons, but this is all to say that by increasing the availability of housing we would end, or even dramatically decrease the homeless population in this country is in fact nonsense. Affordable housing certainly is a laudable goal when considering how expensive it is for regular working people to make ends meet in today’s world, but I cannot believe that would be much help to ending the problem of homelessness.
James says
Just what is “public land,” as opposed to “private” land? Hadn’t really given it much thought actually, until recently.
The short answer… I think… is there is no such thing as “public” land. All land is owned by the government, whether on the state or federal level… whether in “raw” form such as a national park, or in “improved” form.
Not sure what qualifies as an “improvement” over nature for a government entity to declare it as such. But I suspect it could be little more than a formality in which the land is given it’s first “title of ownership” (and an initial survey), to the local government by state or federal decree… at least in our present day.
From that point on it is the local governments property… and responsibility… until it is not. That is, until it is sold to a “private” entity. But that is still not the entire story. The local government establishes covenants and zoning restrictions and a variance system with the aim to “protect” the developing area… but really it’s to ultimately guide the regions development in such a way as to assure a maximization of future tax revenue.
So I guess what you and I might conclude is that it’s as much the governments choice (if not more so) than we, “the public” as too what kind of housing is built and where.
So it is indeed the government (in whatever form… local, state or federal) that ultimately determines homelessness levels.
Just an opinion.
James says
I’d just like to add that the “solution” of incarceration for being homeless in America is indeed an absurdity and a supreme injustice.
Just my opinion.
dave says
Well Newsome in Ca, is starting his movement to remove the homeless from public areas like DeSantis . California and Florida have the nation’s highest and third-highest unhoused populations, respectively. That makes sense — it matches both states’ overall population rankings. But their new actions to remove the public shelters really don’t solve the actual problem of homeless. These people are still homeless while they ” reside” in shelters provided by the cities and counties. The problem will never go away. I was born in this state 70+ years ago and there was homeless then, not as rampant as today, but it was there. I guess we will see what the law does when it goes into effect in Fla Oct 1.