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The city of Grants Pass, Oregon has a problem. It’s the same problem that we’re seeing in every small town and major city in America- unhoused people, living in tents, in parks and under bridges across the country. The solution to this is obvious: build more housing. People are not, for the most part, unhoused because they want to be, they are unhoused because they cannot afford housing. This is common sense for many of us. But not for the city of Grants Pass, or, indeed, most cities in America. Instead, Grants Pass set out on a mission familiar to cities across America- make unhoused people so uncomfortable, unhappy, and unable to live outside in their city that they are forced to move.
Move where? No one knows. Grants Pass doesn’t care. Just not here.
So Grants Pass created municipal codes to prohibit sleeping outside, essentially outlawing public camping. Police did what they do everywhere- ravaged the unhoused encampments, burning and trashing their belongings, levying fines that are impossible for unemployed, unhoused persons to pay, destroying the documents they need to get the housing and jobs that would solve the problem if either, or more importantly, both, were available. At some point, we stopped seeing unhoused people as people and started to see them as pests that the “real people” have a right to torture, abuse, and mistreat.
Finally, someone stood up and said no more. They sued. Under the 8th Amendment, which protects Americans from cruel and unusual punishment. The 9th Circuit ruled that laws that outlaw public camping against involuntary homeless people are cruel and unusual. I think most people with a heart and basic critical thinking skills would agree. How is it right, ethical, or even conscionable to ruin the property and lives of people who are sleeping outside against their will?
Grants Pass could have built more shelters, they have fought them off at every step. They could have built affordable housing, but they’ve made that nearly impossible as well. They have done everything they can to make it impossible for people to afford housing, and then, when the inevitable happens, the city has tortured and punished every unhoused person at every opportunity.
As Grants Pass council president, Lily Morgan, said, “The point is to make it uncomfortable enough for them so they will want to move on down the road”. Cruel. Unusual. Inhuman.
And now the Supreme Court will decide. With the current SCOTUS, there usually isn’t much hope in a case like this, but during the arguments, which we’ll cover later, even rapist Brett Kavanaugh couldn’t quite understand how these policies were constitutional, or logical. So perhaps, perhaps there is hope.
Human beings have always been able to look directly into the eyes of other humans and not register their humanity, it’s a part of who we are. It’s how war, slavery, abuse, assault, and all of the ways that humans violate and harm other humans are possible. It’s also why the Supreme Court exists. To force the inhuman humans in positions of power to act with the morality and integrity that we all have the right to expect from each other. Of course, the justices of the Supreme Court are human too, and fail more often than they succeed, but maybe, just maybe, they won’t this time.
I’ll be keeping you updated over the next few weeks (SCOTUS decisions come out in June) with more information about Grants Pass, the state of homelessness in America, and how we can work to get people off the streets, and keep them safe while they’re still there.
This is why we get IDs. This is why we do the work we do. In a world in which it is acceptable to treat humans like vermin just because they don’t have a roof over their heads, it is our responsibility to be more compassionate than ever and to do everything we can to help.
Keeping my fingers crossed for SCOTUS,
Kat
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