By Tammy Rosing, South Central Healthcare Rights Committee, PA Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, National Union of the Homeless
On Friday, January 12, 2024, the United States Supreme Court announced it would take up the case of Grants Pass v. Johnson, which is the most significant case about homelessness in over 40 years.
Grants Pass, Oregon has outlawed “camping” on public property. Camping to them is using these items in public spaces: blankets, cardboard, pillows, or even the activity of lying down! Authorities in Grants Pass are not using this law to just ticket anyone, they are specifically targeting those in violation of this law who are also perceived to be unhoused.
This directly violates a 2018 9th Circuit Court ruling: which states you cannot criminalize sleeping on public property if there isn’t adequate shelter.
The Supreme Court heard arguments on the case April 22, 2024, and it’s final outcome will be “to determine whether, if under our constitution, a local government can make it a crime to involuntarily live outside and unsheltered, when adequate shelter is not available” with a ruling expected to come by the end of June 2024.
I first heard about this case coming up to the Supreme Court a couple of weeks after they had agreed to take it up. I learned it was taking place because I came across a Tik Tok video of someone sharing about it with their comment and concern seeming to be that we, as a nation, are returning to the ways of institutionalizing the unhoused poor working class and with hearing that I needed to learn more.
There began my journey of learning all I could about the case of Grants Pass v Johnson, the role and power of our nation’s Supreme Court and what a ruling on this case means for the poor working class of the United States. What I have learned to date has astounded me and ultimately has left me with the realization that us poor folk are in the midst of a fight for our lives, more specifically our human right to merely exist!
Grants Pass doesn’t care whether there are available shelter beds (there isn’t) and this is not just happening in Grants Pass, the criminalization of the poor and unhoused is happening across the nation and it’s rising. 2023 had record levels of police violence hand-in-hand with rising poverty and rising criminalization and incarceration of the poor.
In 2023, 135 million people (more than 40% of our nation’s population), were poor or low-income and just one paycheck or healthcare emergency away from homelessness. Over 50% of all renters in the nation are struggling to pay rent. Homelessness has increased 12% from 2022 to 2023 a record number since 2007 as rents soar and pandemic aid lapses. Even owning your own home doesn’t protect you from homelessness, currently 30.8% of all homeowners in the United States are struggling to maintain their homes, they are being referred to as “House Poor.” On top of all that 21 million+ people have been cut from Medicaid since April 1, 2023 and 60% of our nation’s population are living paycheck to paycheck.
The media and many people in power really talk about us unhoused folks like we are a different species or something, a disease on this planet, like we aren’t even human and this dehumanizing rhetoric insinuates that we are the ones to blame for the economic woes of everyone and affects our health as well as puts our lives at risk. The Put People First! PA Media & Communications Team recently studied Media coverage of Grants Pass. We saw in the videos how the poor are always treated as a criminal case or as a pity case – NEVER as powerful leaders who are capable of upending this system.
Government and Judicial officials, profiteers and special interests criminalize us for the poverty they create through their policies and lobbying then use the media to spew out false narratives that lead to mistreatment by those around us or vigilantes who beat or even kill us as if we are the cause of the problems they face.
I’m a leader in the Pennsylvania & National Union of the Homeless and earlier this year, as well as several other times throughout my life, I experienced homelessness. Our landlord announced they needed to rent the unit to family and won’t be renewing our lease. Luckily we had a lot of support this time around, thanks to the people we organize with, so it wasn’t as bad as the previous times. However it was still very emotionally draining, intense and I was under constant stress. It took us four months to find a place and that was with a lot of people helping us, like the people in Put People First! PA and various community programs. So needless to say this ruling that we will hear soon from the Supreme Court, which will determine whether or not being homeless is a crime, is very personal to me and concerns me greatly.
The current path of the United States is a grim future of prison or death for the poorest of the poor and the time for us to organize is NOW! We MUST unite and push back!
There are many ways to get involved and fight for systemic fundamental change to this death dealing system! You can join the National Union of the Homeless or Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival in your state or you can join us at Put People First! PA.
We gotta rise up and lead and demand justice! We need to demand our right to exist and demand our right to housing, healthcare and other basic human needs. Join us and become a poverty abolitionist!
Resources to learn more:
- Check out the National Union of the Homeless Blog
- Read “The Criminalization of Poverty Is Creating a More Violent World” by Rev. Liz Theoharris and Shailly Gupta Barnes
- Watch the PA Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and National Union of the Homeless teach in
- Base-building, Keystone News, Media & Communications, Nonviolent Medicaid Army, South Central PA
- grants pass, national union of the homeless, SCOTUS