one element of Grants Pass is that it’s not just about whether you can enforce anti-camping laws against the homeless. it’s about whether you can enforce those laws **even when you haven’t provided adequate shelter beds**
First decision is Grants Pass. Gorsuch has the 6-3 opinion finding that the Eighth Amendment does not bar "generally applicable" laws banning public camping. Sotomayor writes the dissent. www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23p...
And don't forget, the VAST majority of homeless populations are local, not people who "moved in to take advantage of the climate and better services." They had homes there. They still have a support system there. They are hardly ever migrants, short of having family there now.
Idk about the situation in Grants Pass specifically but other PNW smaller cities have been getting large groups of homeless people that were kicked out of Seattle and Portland. They get pushed to smaller cities then the people in charge panic and make laws to kick them out to the next town.
Grants Pass is on the southern end of the state. It's like Seattle exporting their homeless to Hermiston; it just won't happen and if they forcibly removed them, they'd make their way back to their support systems.
I live just in the other side of the bridge from hermiston in tri cities and we have lots of homeless people. Most of my job involves dealing with them and I see who is in the area they are allowed to be in on a daily basis. There are lots of new people, most were kicked out of the west side.
It’s actually happening, lots of older people I talk to tell me they were run out of Seattle and tell me horror stories about the police here throwing all their shit away and telling them to go back to Seattle because we don’t have a homeless problem here. They don’t know where to go.
Same thing happens in Portland, they get run out of it (often losing their stuff in the process) set up camp in Washington County, get kicked out of there, etc etc. if they're lucky they have a vehicle so they don't lose their stuff but a lot aren't lucky
