Supreme Court decision on homeless case is a blow to cities wanting more policing powers

LOS ANGELES – For communities across the West hoping to gain some legal leeway to deal differently with homeless people sleeping on their streets, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday dealt them a setback that, at least for now, maintains the status quo.

The high court declined to hear a landmark case on homelessness, letting stand a ruling that amounts to a broad curb on police powers in nine Western states, including in California, to stop people from sleeping on public property if no other shelter is available.

Dozens of other local governments, including the city and county of Los Angeles, had urged the court to hear a challenge to Martin vs. City of Boise. But the justices, without comment or a dissent, said that they would not.

Here’s what that means for Los Angeles and the rest of California. Q: What is Martin vs. City of Boise? A: It’s a landmark ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018. It arose from a lawsuit involving seven homeless people who were cited for camping on public property in Boise, Idaho. The federal appeals court said that prosecuting people for sleeping on the sidewalk when there are not enough shelter beds or housing was unconstitutional.

Q: How did this happen?

A: The 2018 ruling in the Boise case essentially turned what was supposed to be a stopgap arrangement in Los Angeles into a sweeping and potentially open-ended curb on police powers.

In 2007, the city of L.A. stopped putting people in jail for sleeping in the streets as part of a deal known as the Jones agreement, which halted police enforcement of laws barring encampments in public spaces until the city could build more housing for homeless people. That settlement came the year after a previous ruling from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that found L.A.’S sweeps of homeless encampments on skid row were cruel and unusual punishment.

Then in 2018, the federal appeals court issued a similar ruling in the case out of Boise, setting up the proposed challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court. Q: Why is this a big deal for Los Angeles? A: It essentially leaves in place the status quo – meaning L.A. and other cities cannot prevent people from sleeping outdoors on public property when there aren’t enough shelter beds available.

Los Angeles County has nearly 60,000 homeless people, most of them living on the streets in encampments, which pop up faster than city sanitation crews can dismantle them. The city and county, like much of California, where rents have skyrocketed, hasn’t been able to build housing or shelters fast enough to keep up with demand.