California Cities Rethink Homelessness Tactics After Supreme Court Ruling
At the epicenter of the US homelessness crisis, the Grants Pass decision has municipal leaders weighing the balance between criminalization and compassion.
A tent underneath an overpass in Oakland, California, in April 2024.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergWeeks after the Supreme Court decision that stands to reshape how US cities confront homelessness, officials in Stockton, California, were getting ready to change their tactics.
This inland city of about 330,000 east of San Francisco has been struggling with homelessness for years. Residents of north Stockton have been complaining about large encampments like those in the woods and marshes of the White Slough Nature Area, as well as parks and near railroad tracks. Just sending in police to ticket unhoused people and remove their tents was no solution. In addition to being costly and disruptive, police sweeps had legal issues: Like many western municipalities, Stockton’s ordinances and policies around homelessness are based on the Martin v. Boise decision, a Ninth Circuit ruling that the Supreme Court upheld in 2019, which said that people can’t be punished for sleeping outside on public property “in the absence of adequate alternatives.”