The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson which upholds the ability of cities to punish people for sleeping outside should be a major wakeup call.
Yet, instead of shaking us awake to what has been happening in this country and how we arrived at this homelessness crisis, we will likely continue to believe that the harassment, displacement and incarceration of people who are homeless is a solution to the problem. Rather than eradicating homelessness, governments will try to eradicate homeless people.
In the majority opinion by the Court, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote, "Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it." Justice Gorsuch is correct to say homelessness is complex, but his majority opinion ignores the public policy decisions that have led to the unprecedented levels of homelessness in our country today.
In the book Mean Streets, which uncovers some of the roots of homelessness in America, Don Mitchell points out that 40 years ago, under the Reagan Administration, the affordable housing budgets dropped by nearly 80%.
Concurrent to the hollowing out of affordable housing programs, billions of tax dollars have been siphoned off as benefits to wealthy homeowners. Meanwhile housing costs have skyrocketed in part because we have allowed investors and profit-driven developers to use housing as a place to park their wealth.
None of this is an accident. The wealthiest in this country use their money to elect those will best serve their interests. The poorest among us then suffer the indignity of having nowhere to call home. And the majority of Americans fall prey to our worst instincts to feel offended by the mere sight of people who have nowhere to go. We avert our eyes. But are homeless people really the problem?
Putting a finer point on it, Matthew Demond in his Pulitzer Prize winning book Evicted, wrote "We have the money. We've just made choices about how to spend it. Each year, we spend three times what a universal housing voucher program is estimated to cost on homeowner benefits, like the mortgage-interest deduction and the capital-gains exclusion."
One policy option, among many, is that Congress could shift billions in annual federal subsidies from rich homeowners to programs that provide universal housing vouchers. Or we could roll back decades of tax cuts for the wealthy which would open up all kinds of possibilities towards making our country true to its ideals and its promise.
However, the Grant Pass decision is part and parcel of kicking the can down the road. Instead of any meaningful course correction, the decision gives local governments all the legal latitude they need to treat human beings as if they can be disposed of somewhere.
Who are these human beings? They are disproportionately people who were in foster care; victims of domestic abuse; veterans; and people with mental and physical disabilities. Some end up homeless because of addiction. Many end up with addiction because of the stress of being homeless.
Looking at homelessness through the lens of race, another truth emerges about who doesn't have a home in America. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Black Americans, while representing 13% of the general population, account for more than 50% of families with children who are homeless.
Demond writes, "Whatever our way out of this mess, one thing is certain. This degree of inequality, this withdrawal of opportunity, this cold denial of basic needs, this endorsement of pointless suffering—by no American value is this situation justified. No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become."
And remembering also the words of Emma Lazarus' poem engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me."
The Grants Pass decision may coddle us to stay asleep to the true causes of homelessness in America, and therefore fail to advance real solutions. But it's not too late for us to wake up, and avert our eyes no longer.
Lida Shepherd
WV Economic Justice Director
This piece by was originally published on July 20, 2024 in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.