Cities can now enforce bans on people sleeping outside. What will that mean for Boise?

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled that cities can enforce bans on camping in public — in practice, allowing police to issue tickets or fines to people experiencing homelessness. The ruling overturned lower court rulings that viewed these punishments as “cruel and unusual” for people who had nowhere else to go.

Leaders of several Western cities had pushed for this outcome, seeking greater latitude to locally manage rising homelessness rates. California Gov. Gavin Newsom told The Washington Post that the decision removed “legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years.” The majority opinion in the case repeatedly cited an amicus brief led by Idaho, which sought to preserve “safety and livability in cities,” according to a news release from Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador.

But shortly after the ruling was announced, Boise Mayor Lauren McLean said her city’s approach to homelessness and affordable housing would not change.

“Criminalizing homelessness has never, and will never, solve the problems associated with homelessness,” McLean said in a statement. “We must address the root causes with proven strategies, like permanent supportive housing, that empower our residents to stay housed and thrive in their community.”

It’s not yet clear whether the Supreme Court ruling in this case, Grants Pass v. Johnson, will overturn the outcome of a 2018 lawsuit against Boise, said Jodi Peterson-Stigers, the executive director of Boise’s Interfaith Sanctuary. In that case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that cities could not enforce camping bans if they lacked sufficient homeless shelter beds.

“For now, I think the most important thing is that our mayor is standing in alignment with those who serve the homeless and saying, ‘We’re going to carry on and keep trying to do this better,’ ” Peterson-Stigers said.

Boise does have ordinances against camping on the books, but the Boise Police Department’s policy manual gives officers “discretion” to enforce those rules.

“No law enforcement action shall be taken when the person is on public property and there is no available overnight shelter,” the manual says.

To determine whether shelter is available, according to the manual, the department assesses whether shelters can accommodate an individual’s mental or physical health needs and whether shelters would require individuals to participate in religious programming as a condition of staying in the space, among other considerations.

In practice, officers do sometimes find “workarounds” to ticket people who are sleeping outside, even when shelter space is unavailable, Peterson-Stigers said.

“When our shelter is full, if they find someone sleeping outside, they get a ticket for something else like disorderly conduct, trespassing, things like that,” she previously told the Idaho Statesman.

Haley Williams, a spokesperson for the department, told the Statesman the day before the ruling that the department did not anticipate any policy changes as a result of the case.

As of January 2023, there were 687 people experiencing homelessness in Ada County, according to data from Our Path Home, a public-private partnership that aims to end homelessness in Ada County. This “point-in-time” data, based on a one-night count, reflected about a 10% increase in overall homelessness since 2022, and is likely an undercount, according to the organization. The area has seen a 12% decrease in overall homelessness since 2012, according to the organization.

Peterson-Stigers said the Supreme Court’s ruling represents an “expensive solution,” and in some ways is “not a solution at all.”

“It creates a deeper homelessness for people, because criminalization means it’s harder to get housed, harder to get employed, because you’re getting these tickets racked up, because you may not be able to seek safe shelter,” she said. “You go to get a job to try and get out of your homelessness, and they do a background check, and there’s a warrant because you haven’t paid five tickets from being outside, because you don’t have the funding or the transportation to get to court.”

For those who wind up in jail, she added, taxpayers will foot the bill.

In 2021, as the Grants Pass case moved through the courts, the Oregon Legislature passed a law to create a “reasonable” standard for local ordinances about sleeping outside. (“What is objectively reasonable may look different in different communities,” according to the League of Oregon Cities.) In an email, Maria Weeg, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, declined to speculate on what, if any, action the Idaho Legislature would take in response to this ruling.

To Peterson-Stigers, the ruling amounts to a broader statement.

“You’re basically saying it’s illegal to be homeless,” she said. “Whether we have put the infrastructure in to ensure that people have safe shelter and housing, it’s on you. You’re the one who’s breaking the law.”

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