(The Center Square) – Just as homelessness rates across the country reached record highs, the impact of a June 2024 U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for a town in Oregon to criminalize sleeping in public.
Introducing bills in both chambers, progressive legislators are working to prevent the possibility for Pennsylvania municipalities to do the same.
“This harms all of us,” said Sen. Nikil Saval, D-Philadelphia, the bill’s prime sponsor in the upper chamber. “Study after study shows that the criminalization of homelessness is cruel, it is a gross misuse of public resources, and that it serves to exacerbate the crisis it professes to combat.”
Senate Bill 1089 and its companion proposal would require municipalities to provide shelter for the homeless population before enforcing any ordinances that would criminalize living or sleeping outdoors.
In Grants Pass, the town whose ordinances led to the Supreme Court ruling, people can be fined or jailed for sleeping in parks, on the streets, and even in their cars. The 6-3 ruling in support of those ordinances has been a catalyst for cities to unleash legislation and execute sweeps clearing out encampments.
In July of this year, President Donald Trump issued an executive order that pledged to enforce prohibitions and promoted the institutionalization of those living on the streets with mental illness or substance use disorder.
Housing advocates say that the court ruling presumes that people living outdoors have choices that they often do not. Shelter beds are full, waiting lists are long, and conditions for housing can be prohibitive for those struggling with employment, substance abuse, or even having children or pets who also need shelter.
“Because so many of us move through our days full of choices, it’s easy to assume that everyone has choices, many choices every single day,” said Phyllis Chamberlain, executive director of the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania. “And when we start from that assumption, it leads some people to believe that homelessness must be a choice, too.”
The proposed legislation would not prevent towns and cities from enforcing rules so long as there were available alternatives for people to turn to.
“I know very well that public parks aren’t the best places for people to call home,” said Amos Stoltzfus, the SoWe Neighborhood Director at Tenfold, a Lancaster housing organization. “But at a time when many of our communities don’t have enough shelter beds to meet the demand, a park is sometimes the best that we can offer.”
He recounted a recent instance in which he provided a woman fleeing domestic violence with a locker to keep her valuables safe. With a park curfew enforced in Lancaster and no empty shelter beds, there was no legal place for her to sleep.
Advocates say the consequences of enforcement undermine the work being done to serve the homeless. At worst, they can be fatal to a demographic where the life expectancy is just 50, according to physician’s assistant Joanie Miller who practices street medicine.
“For example, an individual who by choice entered into opioid use disorder treatment with us directly on the street has successfully stopped the use of fentanyl and is on the housing list,” said Miller. “A street sweep, forced removal of herself from public space and resulted in the loss of essential items critical to surviving, including her tent, her medication, and the photo of her son that reminded her why she was working so hard to get off the streets.”
Miller’s patient, a rape victim, relapsed, overdosed and died that night. Another told her he was considering hanging himself from a nearby tree, unsure if he could survive another winter outdoors.
“We will bend the arc of government here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania away from a sort of municipal surrender that says the only form of affordable housing that we will invest in is prisons and toward an approach to local government that is defined by justice and human interests before business or political interests,” said Rep. Izzy Smith Wade-El, D-Lancaster.
The legislators said that this bill would be just the beginning of a push for housing reform aimed at addressing the root causes of homelessness. Their goals fell in line with the dissenting opinion of Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Grants Pass.
“It is possible to acknowledge and balance the issues facing local governments, the humanity and dignity of homeless people, and our constitutional principles,” wrote Sotomayor. “Instead, the majority focuses almost exclusively on the needs of local governments and leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested.”
