In a 6-3 decision on Friday, the US Supreme Court ruled that a law in Grants Pass, Oregon did not qualify as cruel and unusual punishment. The law imposed steep fines and threatened jail time for people sleeping in public, even when there’s not enough shelter to go around.
Advocates have been sounding the alarm on this case, arguing that upholding the law would embolden cities to criminalize rather than care for their unhoused residents.
After the decision, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell’s office said the ruling won’t change anything in Seattle. Council Member and Housing and Human Services Committee Chair Cathy Moore echoed his sentiment.
“While cities and counties need tools to address homelessness, and I’m grateful that today’s ruling recognizes that, criminalizing homelessness is never the answer. Today’s decision does not change that,” Moore said. “…I will endeavor to focus on solutions that address the root causes of homelessness.”
Though the SCOTUS ruling will not change how Seattle conducts its encampment sweeps, advocates say the City must do more.
“There are two alternatives—and local elected officials and state elected officials have to be very clear, and we have to hold them to account. Either public officials spend public resources to jail, intimidate, and chase their constituents who are too poor to have homes, or local officials spend public resources to provide housing and services that every person needs to thrive,” said Alison Eisinger, executive director for the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness.
Right now, Eisinger said the Harrell administration is doing a little bit of both. While not instituting a camping ban counts as a “good move,” Eisinger said a “great move” would be to “invite service providers, advocates, and folks who know homelessness to help them do a better job than they think they are currently doing.”
Mayor Bruce Harrell has earned a bad reputation with the unhoused, the poor, and the broader left for his relentless encampment sweeps.
According to Real Change, the City conducted more than 2,800 sweeps in 2023 for an average of 7.75 sweeps a day. That’s a 207% increase from 2022, when the Harrell Administration approved 922 sweeps, already a massive increase from 2021’s 51 sweeps. During his Mayoral campaign in 2021, Harrell said that “there needs to be consequences” for unhoused people who refuse shelter. Plus, Harrell has allies in the new, more conservative city council and in City Attorney Ann Davison, who praised the Supreme Court for its ruling.
Sweeps don’t seem to bring people out of homelessness very often. If they did, then Harrell’s administration would have probably eradicated homelessness by now. But homelessness has increased under his watch. According to the King County Regional Homelessness Authority’s biennial Point-In-Time count, an estimated 16,385 people experience homelessness on any given night in King County in 2024, which marks a 23% increase from the last count in 2022. Almost 10,000 of those experiencing homelessness do so unsheltered.
Sweeps serve as a form of punishment in and of themselves because they rip people from their community, often destabilizing and endangering them.
Seattle may not hand out fines like Grants Pass, but sweeps cost people money in the form of lost possessions, particularly in cases where the City calls in Lincoln Towing to impound RVs. Seattle also may not regularly arrest during sweeps, but with heavy police presence, unhoused people feel the implicit threat of arrest should they resist a removal.
Harrell’s spokesperson, Callie Craighead, said his administration will continue to abide by the Multi Departmental Administrative Rules (MDAR) standards established in 2017. Under those rules, the City says it will not sweep without providing 72 hours of notice and offering every resident some form of shelter.
But the City already finds workarounds to the MDAR. In 2023, the City called basically every encampment an “obstruction,” allowing them to sweep without so much notice. (A partial court ruling from last summer could partially close that loophole, but the court did not define what a true obstruction is.) The City also skirts the shelter requirement by offering shelter that people will not accept. Someone might rather sleep outside than in a congregate shelter that comes with rules and potential dangers.
“The worry is not that suddenly, because of the Grants Pass decision, the City will be emboldened to change course. It’s that we don’t have—and we didn’t have before this court case—the right shelter mix to result in people accepting shelter referrals,” said Lisa Daugaard, co–executive director of Purpose Dignity Action.
But that approach—one that prioritizes bringing people inside, not pushing them from block to block—costs money. Eisinger said her coalition will ask the City of Seattle and King County for more money in their upcoming budget negotiations. The coalition does not have an exact number yet, but it will cost more money just to maintain service. In order to actually start chipping away at the crisis, Eisinger said local governments must pay to expand those services.
“They can spend more money chasing people around, or they can spend money on housing and services,” Eisinger said. “I can tell you one works a whole lot better than the other.”
I like that we’ve decided to characterize persons with untreated mental illness and substance abuse problems as “constituents who are too poor to have homes.” That won’t lead to meaningful progress resolving those issues, and won’t alter the trajectory of our overdose epidemic. It is, however, a great way to look progressive and sound compassionate without actually doing anything.
This last commenter seems to not understand that poverty and lack of housing resources is the cause of homelessness…not drug abuse and mental illness. These additional barriers are usually the byproducts of homelessness and/or the poverty that more quickly leads to being unhoused than it ever has in the past. Just a little humanity and less of a confirmation bias makes for more interesting opinions. (In my opinion)
@2 – Anyone who enters this discussion by presenting “THE” cause of homelessness does not possess the required nuance to frame — or solve — this Gordian Knot of a problem. Whether by agenda or lack of information, when you and leaders with your same POV dismiss drug addiction and mental health as mere aftereffects, instead of root causes along with poverty and housing costs, we’re guaranteed to go nowhere.
“Unhoused residents” is an oxymoron. If you don’t have a mailing address in a city, you are a transient, not a resident.
@2: What you are saying is a tautology, equivalent to saying “The reason people can’t pay rent is because they don’t have any money.”
What a keen insight.
“The City also skirts the shelter requirement by offering shelter that people will not accept.”
Further proof the Stranger lost the plot on this issue a long, long time ago.
@2: “This last commenter seems to not understand that poverty and lack of housing resources is the cause of homelessness…not drug abuse and mental illness.”
The City of Seattle’s 2016 Homeless Needs Assessment (https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/HumanServices/CDBG/CityOfSeattle2016-HomelessNeedsAssessment.pdf) showed that a majority of homeless persons in Seattle had arrived in Seattle already homeless, that a majority used alcohol or other drugs, and that an overwhelming majority could not afford to pay more than $500/month for housing — twenty years after even small apartments in Seattle had ceased being available at that rate. Seattle’s homelessness crisis was primarily the result of already-homeless persons moving into Seattle, not because residents of Seattle were losing their homes.
@5: It actually is a keen insight into solving homelessness. Because if you take it seriously and lower the cost of rent to an amount homeless people can afford (including approximately zero) they stop being homeless.
That can happen naturally (e.g., West Virginia) or on purpose (e.g., Finland, Houston). Either way it’s a way to pretty reliably and relatively reduce homelessness.
@9 I agree, if somebody were to provide an unlimited supply of free housing for all who want it that would solve the problem of homelessness. Well spotted.
@10: Somebodies alreaady hassed. We just need to follow suit:
Over the past dozen years, Houston has driven down its homeless population by 64 percent, including a 17 percent reduction last year…Houston’s emphasis is on getting people into their own individual apartments.
By 2020, “practically no-one was sleeping rough on a given night in Finland”, according to a report by economists at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)…it is the result of a sustained, well-resourced national strategy, driven by a ‘housing first’ approach, which provides people experiencing homelessness with immediate, independent, permanent housing
@11 Houston has not solved their homelessness issues
https://communityimpact.com/houston/bay-area/government/2024/06/20/houston-area-homelessness-remains-steady-concerns-for-future-funding-loom/
Houston leveraged federal dollars to help drive down the number of homeless, but that funding is going away, the city will need to find new ways to fund existing programs (let alone fund additional programs).
Cities / municipalities need access to both the carrot (housing first) and the stick (threat of removal) to bring balance (as no one has unlimited funds). I also would argue that cities should prioritize existing residents over new comers or we risk displacement (cities should not be the dumping ground for an entire region’s homeless).
@11
Yep, over the course of several decades, Finland dramatically reduced homelessness. I suppose if Seattle was similarly situated, we might see similar results.
For Seattle to be similarly situated, it would require: a robust, fully funded, preexisting health care system with comprehensive mental health and substance abuse treatment; municipal ownership of a substantial portion of buildable land; full control of population movement via immigration; a well developed social service network; and substantially higher average incomes, at least as a start.
@13: “substantially higher average incomes”
Uh no not even close. According to The Economist at purchasing power parity Seattle’s per capita GDP is 2nd in the world only to San Francisco, making Seattle the 2nd highest income and most productive city in the history of humanity.
“The City also skirts the shelter requirement by offering shelter that people will not accept. Someone might rather sleep outside than in a congregate shelter that comes with rules and potential dangers.”
Hard not to laugh out loud at this. That’s not “skirting” anything. Its offering shelter in lieu of staying in public places which we have all invested in creating and have a different purpose. (BTW, did everyone see this weekend, we spent millions on improvements on Pike Street between First and Second….and it’s already an unauthorized encampment and open toilet.) Sorry that they feel constrained by rules…the rest of us live by lots of rules it turns out. It’s the only way a city can function…if you don’t like rules, move out into the desert someplace and live by yourself. What’s the old saying: Beggars can’t be choosers.
@13: “Yep, over the course of several decades, Finland dramatically reduced homelessness. I suppose if Seattle was similarly situated …”
… it would straddle the arctic circle as well. Homeless problem: solved.
@14 My post above sets out what it would take to create a scenario that would allow Finland’s approach to homelessness to work here. It’s not a direct comparison of average wages in each country.
Yeah, Seattle has a high per capita GDP. It is also has an incredibly high cost of living and remarkable income inequality, and, as a result, many unskilled or low-skilled workers struggle to make ends met. For Finland’s model to work here, those cost of living and income inequality issues need to be addressed.
And, just to point out the obvious: although Seattle is the “most productive city in the history of human history,” we still have thousands of residents living in squalid encampments, overdosing in record numbers. I could be wrong, but it might be possible that per capita GPD is not a useful metric in evaluating outcomes for a society’s most vulnerable residents.
@17: Thanks for that post. I agree with this: “I could be wrong, but it might be possible that per capita GPD is not a useful metric in evaluating outcomes for a society’s most vulnerable residents.”
What I was getting at is that we have the wealth. I don’t know Seattle specific numbers, but at the King County level the McKinsey & Company report said solving homelessness would take $1B a year. A 1% King County payroll tax would raise north of $1.5B.
@18 the issue is a US city or county can not solve homelessness on their own (even states are limited due to the free movement of the populace).
We cannot compare the approach of a country with that of a local municipality – it is truly like comparing apples and mangoes. At best we can implement programs to benefit long term residents (anything more and the system would collapse under demand). Barring direct government support, we can attempt to streamline the conditions (regulations) for the private development of housing (all forms).
@18: “What I was getting at is that we have the wealth.”
Which was the least, and last, of the items listed @13. You simply ignored the first item, a healthcare system to address drug addiction and mental illness.
“…McKinsey & Company report said solving homelessness would take $1B a year.”
Said document also blithely assumed the only cause of homelessness was lack of inexpensive housing. They ignored health care as easily as you just did here.
@20: “Said document also blithely assumed the only cause of homelessness was lack of inexpensive housing. They ignored health care as easily as you just did here.”
I had an uncle with many problems who lived in a trailer in my grandma’s yard. He would have led a longer, happier life if he’d gotten medical care, mental health counseling, and substance abuse treatment.
Alas that was not in the cards – but he was never for a moment homeless.
“According to Real Change, the City conducted more than 2,800 sweeps in 2023 for an average of 7.75 sweeps a day. That’s a 207% increase from 2022, when the Harrell Administration approved 922 sweeps, already a massive increase from 2021’s 51 sweeps. During his Mayoral campaign in 2021, Harrell said that “there needs to be consequences” for unhoused people who refuse shelter.”
So in other words, Harrell is following through on one of his signature campaign promises that helped lead to his landslide victory over his Stranger-endorsed opponent. Maybe The Stranger shouldn’t talk about it so much, since it’s exactly the sort of thing that will help get Harrell re-elected.
@21: So, your grandmother agreed to warehouse her son on her property. (For his use of the trailer and land, did he pay her anywhere close to market rate? Did he pay it with money he earned? I’m guessing no to both.) Either the mental-health resources weren’t available at that time, or no one required him to partake of them.
Aside from Seattle probably not having 10,000+ homeowners willing to perform your grandmother’s role for a total stranger, should warehousing be Seattle’s civic goal? As we here in New York State recently learned, having a non-functional member of society warehoused on private property can lead to bad outcomes for others in the community:
“On September 30, a nine-year-old girl went missing while she was camping with her family at Moreau Lake State Park in Saratoga County. The next morning, law enforcement said they believed the nine-year-old could’ve been abducted, and issued an amber alert.
“On October 2, the girl was found in a cabinet inside a trailer behind a home near the intersection of Middle Line Road and Barrett Street in Milton. The home belonged to Craig Ross Jr.’s mother.”
https://cbs6albany.com/amp/news/local/craig-ross-jr-pleads-guilty-in-moreau-lake-state-park-abduction-case-kidnapping-predatory-sexual-assault-against-a-child-amber-alert-nine-year-old-abducted-ransom-note-suspect-in-court
@24: My uncle’s rent was whatever he could pay in any given month, including “nothing.”
To end homelessness, we don’t need private property owners to offer affordable rent (including “nothing”) – we just need rent subsidies and SROs. Anyone with a voucher that covers what they can’t or at minimum a room in an SRO or supportive housing with rent they can afford in any given month (including “nothing”) won’t be homeless, regardless of how many untreated medical problems or whatnot they have.
@25: Yes, free housing for King County’s homeless population — what could possibly go wrong?
“Renton police and fire investigators found the fire was started on the floor of room 614 and included the burned remains of a cardboard box, a pile of papers, bedding and a fold out bed cushion. […]
“Investigators said the 46-year-old resident of the room had made threats to burn down the building earlier in the day and was arrested by Renton police for investigation of arson.”
(https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/fire-set-renton-high-rise-hotel-being-used-shelter/GRICNGOCPNGPZHXGT3TDRXZWDM/)
(I’m sorry, did someone here just write something about the dangers of warehousing barely-functional persons? Yes, yes, I believe someone did.)
Also, if your head uncontrollably spews so much nonsense, you need multiple accounts just to dump it all here, please do keep your accounts straight whilst posting.
@26: Do you think there were fewer people with problems in Seattle in the 90s when housing was cheaper and homelessness was lower, or in West Virginia today where there’s plenty of drug addiction but less homelessness because housing is cheap, or in Finland, Houston, or among vets in Boston (where they’ve massively reduced vet homelessness) on purpose by providing housing?
There are always and everywhere people with problems whether homeless or not. But homelessness is an easy problem to solve compared to many others.
@27: Seattle’s homeless population contains a large number of persons who suffer from drug addiction and/or mental disorders. Simply giving them housing, without treating their addictions and/or mental conditions, does not work. You keep saying it will, as if it hasn’t already been tried and failed.
If Seattle, King County, or any other American locality tried to deliver a comprehensive program for treating addiction and mental disorders for homeless persons, then as @19 noted, it would collapse under the demand of persons moving there to enter the program. We need a National healthcare system, as Seattle’s voters have said for decades.
@28: “If Seattle, King County, or any other American locality tried to deliver a comprehensive program for treating addiction and mental disorders for homeless persons, then as @19 noted, it would collapse under the demand of persons moving there to enter the program. “
Yet Houston exists and that hasn’t happened.
@29: “Yet Houston exists and that hasn’t happened.”
Please read @12, as you seem to have ignored it completely.
Seattle doesn’t have to “keep pushing them around”. Just wait until one of the crazies burns down the tiny house village, tent camp, or converted hotel housing.
This will continue until the “services” include competent mental health evaluations.
“This one needs a home. This one needs the nut hatch.”
All homeless are NOT created equal.