Over Laws about Arresting " The Homeless" sleeping where ever they want, throwing up tents, and then leaving trash all over the place.. for months. These people are either passed out from using Drugs, or if they are not, they are up and stealing stuff to meet their daily needs from stores, and breaking into homes and cars, to steal things to sell, to get more money to buy more drugs to get high once again. Its a continual cycle, that never ends until they overdose themselves.

Wife is watching this on C Span. And the liberal judges are busy defending these useless members of society, as poor victims. City people who have NO CLUE.

Lets imagine in Metro DC. Just one 'homeless person' ( drug addict) steals a can of Spaghettios. He starts a fire to heat them up while he is high on drugs. The fire gets out of hand, and ends up burning down 11,000 acres.. that is 17.2 miles in area. Then consider the cost of putting out the fires to the tax payers. Forget about the expense of what was there... be it forests or homes/property.

The government is part of the problem, not anything to do with the solution.

They are Not HOMELESS, they are DRUG ADDICTS. iTS THEIR CHOICE FOR THEIR LIFE STYLE.

it is NOT society's problem for their choice in life. It is their problem of their own choosing.



yet we all have to live with and take care of these people, for wanting the life they live.

The Milepost 97 fire. Tough fire to fight and very expensive.

exactly! my friend.

Hoping they win. The city cracked down here, don't know where they are camping, but there is always a couple at Walmart entrance points!

You have people from Metro Wash DC hearing this case and trying this case. They don't have a friggin clue. They are just philosophizing, as they have NO point of reference. I am from Metro Washington DC. I can attest to knowing how they think.

But now I live here in Southern Oregon in Grants Pass. But G.P. is no different than many other places in this state, and the same problems they are dealing with here. Grants Pass is not Unique. Portland and San Fran for example are 100 times worse than what we put up with here....

Interesting.

What's the point of the case? That it's unconstitutional for GP to prosecute/ move the campers?

Could have serious repercussions for other locations.

I’ve a BIL living in Richmond now Working for 20 years for the gummit. When he lived here, pretty solid guy. He visited last week and he definitely has Potomac fever. Thinks Reagan is terrible because he restored citizenship to General Robert E. Lee! Of all the stupid stuff to get wound up about. He’s in for Biden too now. I couldn’t hardly stand to be in the same room with him. I used to have to visit DC somewhat regularly until a couple years ago. There’s certainly the DC groupthink mindset going on there. Hopefully SCOTUS will pull their collective heads out of their asses to see how these drug addicts are impacting everyone else’s lives with their government aided and abetted addiction. These leeches on society need some natural consequences, otherwise they will never change. Why would they?

Facts of the case
The city of Grants Pass in southern Oregon has a population of approximately 38,000, and of that population, somewhere between 50 and 600 persons are unhoused. Whatever the exact number of unhoused persons, however, it exceeds the number of available shelter beds, requiring that at least some of them sleep on the streets or in parks. However, several provisions of the Grants Pass Municipal Code prohibit them from doing so, including an “anti-sleeping” ordinance, two “anti-camping” ordinances, a “park exclusion” ordinance, and a “park exclusion appeals” ordinance.

In September 2018, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided Martin v. City of Boise, holding that “the Eighth Amendment prohibits the imposition of criminal penalties for sitting, sleeping, or lying outside on public property for homeless individuals who cannot obtain shelter.” While the Grants Pass Municipal Code provisions impose only civil penalties, they still can mature into criminal penalties.

A district court certified a class of plaintiffs of involuntarily unhoused persons living in Grants Pass and concluded that, based on the unavailability of shelter beds, the City’s enforcement of its anti-camping and anti-sleeping ordinances violated the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. A panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed, and the Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc.

Question
Does a city’s enforcement of public camping against involuntarily homeless people violate the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment?

This could be another step towards the 3rd Worldization of the US, along with squatter's rights.

GP should just buy them one way tickets to DC. They can sleep on the White House lawn. Problem solved.

GP has an In&Out Burger

I think it's worse in GP than the big cities in one way..the number of homeless druggies is in a much higher proportion to the taxpaying population. Back in the hippy years the Illinois Valley west of GP became a cradle to the drug culture...communes and the whole scene. The Josephine County authorities never cracked down on the drug culture, it became entrenched in the lifestyle of drugs, wrecked families, and entitlement programs feeding the cycle and now we are reaping the harvest of 3 generations of druggies...giving GP an unending supply of addicts far out of proportion to it's population. When all is said and done, it's a testament to the destructive human result of government assistance.

well said, by someone who knows the area! Thanks for piping in Flintlocke!

Swifty,

We don't disagree on much, and I've always had a lot of respect for you.

HOWEVER, you are posting what is being reported by Big Media. I LIVE here and have for 29 years.

There is a boat load more than 600 people who are "transients" ( the politically correct term for Drug Addicts that make that choice in THEIR lives themselves, and they chose to be 'homeless' by choice, to spend more money on drugs and not have to be responsible and clean in their environment ). There is more than a couple of thousand of them.

They are organized enough, that they do shifts among themselves, to man all the local hotspots, out panhandling with their signs of " Stranded, Please Help, NEED Money for food and fuel... God Bless". Then you can go into stores like Walmart or Winco or Fred Meyer early in the morning when they open, or late in the evening when they are close to closing, and these people are in their with their Oregon TRail Card ( Food Stamps on Credit Cards), and they are busy buying alcohol etc Clothes and other food, they just steal that stuff...clothes, they just change into those in the rest rooms, and leave their old smelly dirty crap laying on the floor in the bathroom stalls.

This town is nothing special... this has become an accepted life style all over the west coast and has migrated nationwide now. Its just the first one to end up in front of the Supreme Court... and its all being started by some useless lawyer, that is trying to make a big name for himself... in a small town of 45,000 people.

NO this town has been chosen to be a starting point to either end this crap, OR to make sure the gates of this life style are WIDE OPEN all supported by the DNCC. The people who create problems and then want us to elect them to supposedly do something about it... All they do, is do so to give them more control over people's every day lives. Other than that, what else does the DNCC platform stand on ? NOT a FRIGGIN THING!

Thanks John, but heres the thing what I posted is a quick synopsis of the case not a first hand view or an opinion of how and why. The fact is that there is no way a constitutional right to camp, build temp shelters, sidewalks etc. The case is a farce. But then again this whole administration and .gov agencies are a farce on the grand scale.

The supremes better think this through. Telling a governmental entity that they can’t stipulate how people access and use the entities property can have far reaching effects.

WELL we definitely agree on that. Some of the Supreme Court judges ( the liberal ones ) were asking then where should these people go? Towns in southern Oregon, are islands in a sea of pine forests, that include millions of acres of National and State & County forests.. Both BLM and Forest Service. but then the drug addicts would be away from all the free stuff. and they seem to be worried about O.D.ing, with no immediate medical attention. Plus there is no one out there to Rob for their personal needs.

The answer is pretty simple.. the leftists don't want to embrace it tho, as it gives them one major less thing that they can manipulate, to get more power and more money from the working public.

We get people who overdose pretty much every day, somewhere in the county.. My wife and son work at the local hospital,
where they haul the body into.

The homeless population around here thins out dramatically as the distance increases to WalMarts and shopping centers where they are like flies on schidt.
Once you get out to a mile or more from a shopping center...you'd never believe there was a homeless problem. Simple solution...eliminate shopping centers.
Also it needs to be said at the risk of pissing off the bible thumpers...free food and warming shelters are just another form of addiction in the guise of caring.

Was eating lunch with a customer today and she said other states are shipping the homeless here if they first fail rehabilitation where they were because Oregon has drugs.

Well isn't that special.

I hunted out of Grants Pass in 2005...... it was such a wholesome place compared to Seattle.

I have hunted Montana for 40 years. Their decadence is always 30 years behind Seattle.... except for Billings, which is like an upscale suburb of seattle. My wife's Billings relatives play golf and stay at resorts.

It’s very good too!

I don't think the Supreme Court has a dog in this fight.

Thanks.

The homeless have another problem on BLM and FS land................there's a 14 day limit on camping. Our local one just published their rules for this summer in the local newspaper. 14 day limit in a NF Ranger District.Not sure what divisions the BLM is using. If enforced, the homeless would have to drive to the other side of the county to get into another Ranger District. Good rules in my opinion, to keep permanent camps from being set up. Kinda tough though if, in certain cases, one draws a tag for a long season hunt.

Relative in Flagstaff AZ says there's a big problem there as the NF starts right on the outskirts of town, RVers pull in and set up camp, take the small vehicle, e-bikes, and such into town for supplies and to do stuff. Problem is not just the permanent RV folks, those who sold their homes and just travel, a lot of them are homeless who scrounged together enough $$$ to get a scheidtbox RV/trailer and they park it and stay.

Don't know where and how the judicial system ever got the idea that moving along some vagrants was cruel and unusual.

Clown World for sure.

This ruling could open up a lot of public land to free range camping. Gotta look at the positive side of things.

That's a good point.

Maybe I could screech "RIGHTS" and "FREEDOM" while I strip-mine Yellowstone.

From the day the Forest Service and BLM were created, it's been open to camping..later, rules were made to prevent long term squatting...two weeks at one location, then you have to move. There are exceptions for camps associated with grazing and mining, which are permitted to operate seasonally.

Bought a house in idaho. Moving in July.

Don't want to leave Oregon. But I'm over it..
Lowering the education.....No required proficiency in anything so minorities can graduate, was the straw that broke the camels back.

Like military reservations, INEL, or even, gasp, the Capitol Grounds.

. There are plenty of public lands where camping is completely restricted.

Ah but the point is if enforcement of no camping or the time limits for camping are cruel and unusual punishment, then they have a constitutional right (which is BS) to stay as long as they want with no repercussions. BLM and the FS couldn’t enforce it legally anymore than Grants Pass could.
Just another constitutional right conveyed by a judge that isnt in the constitution.

I have read some SCOTUS deliberations in the past, and they do think beyond the matter at hand to include future or unintended consequences.

Nope, don’t believe that at all, if they did it that way Chevron Deference decision would have never happened. I mean who couldnt see what would happen if bureaucrats were allowed to interpret law.

Out West, most of the NF/BLM land is open to dispersed, free, camping Paul. I rarely camp in the pay campgrounds, perhaps if I'm with other folks that require the amenities like a pit toilet in a cinder block building that just serves to keep the stink in and water that comes out of a pipe next to the stinky building.

What it might open up, should GP lose, is all that land I hunt, fish, walk around on being filled with semi-permanent third world shanty towns.

Certain National Park properties Paul?

Cabrillo National Monument?

Some of the National Seashores?

It will be good to open those closed areas to camping????

Citizens United perhaps, and some others that basically granted corporations and other organization the rights of a natural person???

Much of the Gulf Island National Seashore is no camping. Much of the Gunnison National Forest near Crested Butte CO is no camping or restricted camping. Arches and Bryce National Parks do not allow dispersed camping as far as I know.

And would it ruin the experiences in those places were unregulated "camping" to be allowed?

I agree, it would be nice for me, and those like me, who keep a clean camp and bury our scheidt, but I'd not likely visit if the homeless were allowed to "camp" as they tend to do.

Isn't there a ballot initiative coming up that would reverse some of the current woke drug laws that created safe places to use drugs?

Exactly. If SCOTUS rules that Grant's Pass can't stop camping on their property, then wouldn't the same apply to federal lands too?

I have no faith that SCOTUS is smart enough, well at least a few members, to realize ALL the future impacts of the case.

And I certainly don't think Congress ever imagined the laws they wrote way back when would turn out to be interpreted the way they are by some Courts today.

Unhoused huh?

We need to quit acquiescing to the leftist language. These are drug addicts. Just like the ‘immigrants’ are illegal alien invaders.

THANK YOU!!! They are ALL Friggin drug addicts! They made a personal choice and keep it alive. It is not the public's job to feel sorry for these people. Its live saving someone over and over that is busy trying to drown themselves.

AND:

This is not about camping out on Forest Service or BLM property. Its about people, who just set up a tent, or some old RV that doesn't run very well or at all on the side by the curb in town... for months.. or some old beater vehicle. They are high, so they don't care... they throw their trash off to side.. they only move, when even their trash is bothering them it stinks so bad. So they leave it and just move their tents somewhere else.

The city has set aside land in certain parts of town, that only these drug addicts to camp in. They also provide portapotties for them to use the bathroom. NO they use them to shoot up, and then just crap on the ground or empty their bladder where ever they place. Drug addicts are a hazardous waste site, in a pair of flip flops or stolen tennis shoes or boots from Walmart. They have zero hygiene because they could care less. They steal everything they can, to conserve their money to be able to buy drugs. What part of this are people and even the Supreme Court failing to understand.

These people carry diseases. They care about nothing but getting high all day and all the time. These abuse welfare programs and steal just to focus on the drugs to feed their addictions. Most are to high to even care if they do overdose.

Is this the imagine of our nation, that we want to aspire to? Finding this in towns all over America? Well its already here.
Saw it from coast to coast, doing a 10,000 mile trip in November and December cross country, and back, and up and down the east coast. NOT as bad as we have it here on the west coast where the weather is a lot more accommodating than elsewhere for these people.

All the while, these people have MORE "RIGHTS" than anyone who isn't a drug addict. These people with illegal aliens also have many hospitals in this nation going bankrupt having to provide free health care for these people at the hospitals expense. which gets passed on to other paying patients and their insurance. They can't be refused treatment if they can't pay for treatment, courtesy of the Hill Ruddman Act, done back in the 80s. Good intentions that have gotten abuses, by people who scam the welfare systems of this nation.

I've had to chase some of these people off of the properties on each side of my wife's home here, both owned by widows who are elderly. These people just come on the property and set up a tent. 2 to 3 days later they have grown into 3 to 5 tents.

If this fails to get a positive ruling in the Supreme Court, all the other cities and counties nationwide following this case, are just going to see this problem get worse and worse.. and we will all have to start living in homes like you see in Mexico with jail bars over the windows and doors.

This crap is what is turning cities like Seattle, San Fran, LA and Potlandia into the third world. DemocRATS don't seem to care if that is their legacy, as long as they get to stay in office to supposedly 'manage' the problems it causes.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court wrestled with major questions about the growing issue of homelessness on Monday as it considered whether cities can punish people for sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking.

It's the most significant case before the high court in decades on the issue, and comes as record numbers of people are without a permanent place to live in the United States.

The case started in the rural Oregon town of Grants Pass, which began fining people $295 for sleeping outside as the cost of housing escalated and tents sprung up in the city’s public parks. The San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law under its holding that banning camping in places without enough shelter beds amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

The justices appeared to be leaning toward a narrow ruling in the case after hearing arguments that showed the stark terms of the debate over homelessness in Western states like California, which is home to one-third of the country's homeless population.

Sleeping is a biological necessity, and people may be forced to do it outside if they can't get housing or there's no space in shelters, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

“Where do we put them if every city, every village, every town lacks compassion and passes a law identical to this? Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves, not sleeping?" she said.

Solving homelessness is a complicated issue, said Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He questioned whether ticketing people for camping helps if there aren't enough shelter beds to hold everyone, but also raised concerns about federal courts “micromanaging” policy.

Other conservative justices asked how far Eighth Amendment legal protections should extend as cities struggle with managing homeless encampments that can be dangerous and unsanitary.

“How about if there are no public bathroom facilities, do people have an Eighth Amendment right to defecate and urinate outdoors?” said Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Other public-health laws cover that situation, Justice Department attorney Edwin Kneedler said. He argued people shouldn’t be punished just for sleeping outside, but said the ruling striking down the Grants Pass law should be tossed out because the court didn't do enough to determine if people are “involuntarily homeless.”

Gorsuch and other justices also raised the possibility that other aspects of state or federal law could help sort through the issue, potentially without setting sweeping new legal precedent.

The question is an urgent one in the West, where a cross-section of Democratic and Republican officials contend that the 9th Circuit's rulings on camping bans make it difficult for them to manage encampments. The appeals court has jurisdiction over nine states in the West.

Advocacy groups, on the other hand, argued that allowing cities to punish people who need a place to sleep will criminalize homelessness and ultimately make the crisis worse as the cost of housing increases.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Supreme Court Monday morning to advocate for more affordable housing, holding silver thermal blankets and signs like “housing not handcuffs.”

Homelessness in the United States grew a dramatic 12% last year to its highest reported level, as soaring rents and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more people.

More than 650,000 people are estimated to be homeless, the most since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007. Nearly half of them sleep outside. Older adults, LGBTQ+ people and people of color are disproportionately affected, advocates said.

In Oregon, a lack of mental health and addiction resources has also helped fuel the crisis. The state has some of the highest rates of homelessness and drug addiction in the nation, and ranks near the bottom in access to treatment, federal data shows.

The court is expected to decide the case by the end of June.

“Where do we put them if every city, every village, every town lacks compassion and passes a law identical to this? Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves, not sleeping?" she said.

That, in one line, is the problem of the lefty-loony brigade.

It's not our job to do anything with independent, autonomous adults. If "we" want to do something with them, "we" have to take make them a ward of the state and commit them.

"We" have no obligation, nor legal right, to "put them" anywhere. They are supposed to put themselves somewhere. Else, to be exact. If they can't take care of themselves, commit them and "put them somewhere".

A work camp would be appropriate.

When I was in Grants Pass in 2005 there were people living in the remote corner of the Walmart parking lot.

My father told me that in Seattle in the 1930s there was HOVERVILLE, a sprawling homeless encampment just South of downtown... where industrial Seattle is now.

This ^^

It appears that everything related to swamp DC is corrupt and broken.

kwg

This is the case that opened the doors to the asylums across America. Ronald Reagan is usually blamed for it but Reagan had nothing to do with it.
kwg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Connor_v._Donaldson

Closing mental institutions , legalizing drugs and not enforcing laws have consequences,
who’da thunk ?……

When they get arrested, they can sleep in the jail.

It's called compassion.

The federal court system should not even take this under consideration. It is a local and state issue. The federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in most of the things they are involved in.

Oregon went to worship at the devil’s altar in 2020 and have created this mess along with Commiefornia. The law was supposed to put billions of tax revenue from the pot sales of the decriminalization law in 2014. They even glorified it with tv shows like Belushi’s multi million dollar pot farm.
Where did all those tax dollars go to if Oregon is last in treatment access?
Oregon screwed the pooch.

That is what many states and cities claim about 2'nd amendment cases, it's a local issue.

It is the job of the US Supremes to ensure no constitutional rights are being violated, by anyone. In this case, I don't think a violation of civil rights has occurred. Hopefully SCOTUS can bring some clarity to the issue.

Misappropriation of taxes is a US staple.

In CT lottery proceeds were supposed to go to the education department , yeah right. Into the general fund she went. Corruption in ‘MeriKa goes down to the bone.

But EVERY SINGLE TIME lawmakers promise vice tax revenue to help fund something for good, it all gets lost in the sauce.

Several tons of fentanyl have been confiscated in the last few years. Why not give these idiots a pound of free pills? Two problems solved.

The Second Amendment is a constitutional limitation on government at all levels. If local or state government overstep their constitutional authority then the federal government has a duty to step in and see that constitutional limitations are enforced. Many of the lower courts have allowed violations of the Second Amendment limitations to continue for political reasons and it is more than disappointing how slow the Supreme Court has been to step in and enforce those limitations on government.

I agree in the the case of homelessness, abortion, right to medical care, etc. these are not rights as defined by the constitution, therefore no violation of civil rights has occurred.

You and I are in agreement.

The problem is the leftists are claiming otherwise. We need SCOTUS to correct them. Fingers crossed!

The constitution does not need to define a right for that right to exist.

This was brought under the 8th amendment, which seems like an estreme legal squirrel case to me.




Say...... how about we open up the cemeteries for homeless camping, and also open a police drug evidence locker adjacent. Don't fund the security on the evidence lockers, but be sure to post lots of security outside the gates.

You wouldn't even have to move the homeless to their permanent homes! Just roll them into it......

Seafire: NO... demonrats and guilt ridden white people are THE cause of this problem!
They propagate "it", they tolerate "it" and they think "it" somehow will give them more public funds (hard earned tax dollars!) to stir around and distribute to other liberal leaning idiots in the form of grants and jobs and monies for liars (lawyers) and other ner'do wells chasing the "homeless" problem.
All the city needs is traditional valued conservative councilmen and mayors and then they give the go ahead to the "pohlice" to rid the city of the vagrants, thieves and druggies (via enforcing laws!)!
Problem solved.
Been there, done that (for 29 years professionally!).
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

The first ten amendments to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights places limitations on government by defining rights endowed by our creator. The Eighth Amendment prohibits government from imposing excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishment. How is that relative to this discussion?

I guess congress can define other rights as well which I think they have done but I am not aware of the right to have a home, abortion, medical care, etc. but the federal government does not have constitutional authority to do so even though they have. These are state’s rights. Federal government needs to stay out of the homeless debate.

Much of the observed drug addiction is from mentally ill people self-medicating. So, those people we need to treat differently, but through real mental hospitals. They should not be left to live like filthy feral animals.

The No Harm Coalition is the very face of what caused this whole problem.