this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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As more people end up experiencing homelessness, they’re also facing increasingly punitive and reactionary responses from local governments and their neighbors. Such policies could become legally codified in short order, with the high court having agreed to hear arguments in Grants Pass v. Johnson.

Originally brought in 2018, the case challenged the city of Grants Pass, Oregon, over an ordinance banning camping. Both a federal judge and, later, a panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck the law down, saying that Grants Pass did not have enough available shelter to offer homeless people. As such, the law was deemed to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

The ruling backed up the Ninth Circuit’s earlier ruling on the Martin v. City of Boise case, which said that punishing or arresting people for camping in public when there are no available shelter beds to take them to instead constituted a violation of the “cruel and unusual punishment” clause in the Eighth Amendment. That applied to localities in the Ninth Circuit’s area of concern and has led to greater legal scrutiny even as cities and counties push for more punitive and restrictive anti-camping laws. In fact, Grants Pass pushed to get the Supreme Court to hear the case, and several nominally liberal cities and states on the West Coast are backing its argument. If the Supreme Court overturns the previous Grants Pass and Boise rulings, it would open the door for cities, states, and counties to essentially criminalize being unhoused on a massive scale.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240223125412/https://newrepublic.com/article/178678/supreme-court-criminalize-homeless-case

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[–] ramble81@lemm.ee 117 points 8 months ago (3 children)

What’s gonna happen is they’re going to get arrested and sent to a private prison who will then profit off their free slave labor. And in states with three strike rules that’ll happen a couple times back to back and then you have permanent indentured servitude.

[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 67 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (6 children)

The desire to enslave people is a fundamental conservative trait.

In fact, there has never been a point in human history when conservatives were opposed to slavery, even a little bit.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 29 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Name a more iconic trio than capitalism, Christianity, and conservatism.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

Centrally organized religions in general. Let's not let the others off the hook. It seems like the second prayer gets away from it's community ideals it turns sour.

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[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 19 points 8 months ago

The last state, (I can't remember which red state it was), to pass an anti homeless law caught flack because they included it in stand your ground reasons. However also in that bill was a nice little pathway to felony for the homeless and a three strikes law.

So yeah. That's exactly it.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

While I broadly agree with the sentiment of your post, three strikes laws usually only apply to felonies, and criminalized homelessness is typically misdemeanor stuff. Not a defense of three strike laws, they're fucking garbage, but the truth matters.

[–] toast@retrolemmy.com 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

And while I broadly agree with your point, it is far too easy for law enforcement to tack on additional charges like resisting arrest. And, yes, in most states resisting arrest is also a misdemeanor, but incidents can be raised to felony resisting arrest if they involve assault on an officer. Unfortunately, it is easy for any innocent physical contact with police to be interpreted as assault, if an officer decides to portray it that way. The truth matters, but so does ACAB

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

How many times do you let yourself be arrested non violently, knowing all of your stuff and money is going to be gone before you get back?

And by non violently we mean doing exactly what the cops say, when they say, no questions asked, mid conversation after they've declared they're arresting you. And hoping they don't beat you up and charge you anyways for annoying them or imagined disrespect.

Putting anyone in adverse contact with police routinely is creating a pathway to being a felon.

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[–] Norgur@kbin.social 74 points 8 months ago (10 children)

Got a problem? Just make it illegal! Bam! Solved!

Next up: Not finding a job is going to become illegal, thus solving unemployment issues!

[–] cmoney@lemmy.world 31 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] Norgur@kbin.social 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

But that would make 3/4 of all politicians just disappear. Huh... come to think of it, we should do it!

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[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Conservatives can't understand why we did away with debtors prison.

[–] Smoogs@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago (4 children)

They’ll start to notice when there’s a downturn in their stock earnings due to imprisoning everyone. They have to feel it personally before they take issue with such problems. They don’t have a very far attention span.

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

Oh no the stock market will do just fine when we create different tiers of ~~work camp~~ prison with different suppliers. There'll just be less variety in stocks.

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[–] chakan2@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

They did that already...they tied healthcare to being employed.

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[–] ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 63 points 8 months ago (4 children)

So the Supreme Court is willing to force states to provide shelter and food to homeless people?

I didn't know the Supreme Court justices were socialists.

[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 39 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Oh, no no no, that would be protecting human rights, which conservatives really aren't about. They want to protect states' rights and local governments' rights to harass and brutalize humans. That's their idea of liberty.

[–] aniki@lemm.ee 8 points 8 months ago

It's THEIR liberty -- not yours. You can go get fucked.

[–] PeepinGoodArgs@reddthat.com 5 points 8 months ago (6 children)

In fact, Grants Pass pushed to get the Supreme Court to hear the case, and several nominally liberal cities and states on the West Coast are backing its argument.

How do you explain the liberal cities and states on the West Coast, then?

[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 28 points 8 months ago

Liberals be like

Their market worshipping ideology is barely an improvement over conservatism imo. What we need is progressivism and socialism, but so long as conservatives are turning into fascists I feel compelled to suppprt the liberal douchebags Citizens United has left us with (at least as far as my voting goes, anyway).

[–] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Liberal does not mean progressive.

The term liberal was used to refer to fiscal policies, until Republicans in the Reagan era began misusing the word as a pejorative for Democrats. Most Democrats (especially leadership) are not progressives. Most elected Democrats are neo-liberals, even in blue cities. Neo-liberals are conservatives.

We do not have a viable progressive party in the U.S. We have a conservative party and a more conservative party.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Much like doing genocide and supporting the police, there's a bipartisan consensus on inflicting violence on unhoused people.

[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

"If they wanted their concerns to be taken seriously they should have made a donation to someone's campaign!"

[–] ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 12 points 8 months ago

No war but class war

[–] reagansrottencorpse@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

Liberals are conservatives. That's how.

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

Too many neolibs, not enough social Democrats and similar. A number of socialized programs would cut the homeless population. And we probably wouldn't have an opioid crisis if we had socialized healthcare (because pushing opioids was done for profits after all)

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago

No see the idea is to force states to place homeless people in for profit prisons. Pure capitalism!

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[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 58 points 8 months ago (1 children)

This is my future. I was hit by a driver while riding a bicycle to work 2/26/14. I worked for a chain of bike shops as the Buyer. I left my supercharged Camaro at home and rarely drove. I was 29, no DUI, no reason to have to ride, I chose to ride and race and live. I only barely survived. In 3 days it is the 10 year anniversary of spending most of my days laying in bed. When my folks die, I'll be homeless as it stands now; just another one of more than 100k in the greater Los Angeles basin. If you think disability or social security are some kind of safety net, you are delusional. Most of those people out there are like me, like you, after one bad day at the hands of someone else doing something stupid and completely out of your control.

I'm assuming you've already taken all the legal steps available in your area.

MOVE!

They're alive, so you have support, you have a roof, use the time now to find places that can help you. Make calls, write emails.

Social nets, the few that exist, are still running their programs with the bootstrap mentality. But social programs can and will help you. There are 100% free often national services that have people who's job it is to find programs, file applications, get you to appointments etc.

[–] chakan2@lemmy.world 44 points 8 months ago

This is going to be the new war on drugs. The private prisons were being emptied, so they needed a new supply of bodies.

[–] fastandcurious@lemmy.world 37 points 8 months ago (3 children)
  1. Make people homeless
  2. Criminalize homelessness
  3. Profit
[–] Unpigged@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 8 months ago

A government sponsored slavery plan

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago
  1. buy up all residential real estate
  2. only rent for above market value
  3. pass laws making homelessness illegal
  4. profit
[–] Che_Donkey@lemmy.ml 11 points 8 months ago

2.1) felony record then banning you from voting

[–] paddirn@lemmy.world 35 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If owning a home is a requirement for just being able to exist in society, then doesn't that mean that homeownership (or at least access to renting a home/apartment/etc) is a human right? Shouldn't prices then be regulated such that salaries/minimum wage actually guaranteed you had access to home ownership/rental? If they're setting home-ownership/rental as a responsibility to be able to live, then they need to guarantee home-ownership/rental is affordable for the majority of Americans.

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[–] BradleyUffner@lemmy.world 24 points 8 months ago

Just think of the prison industrial complex profits this is going to bring!

[–] Diplomjodler@feddit.de 23 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Next thing all the homeless people will be put in camps. That's pretty much the plot of that one DS9 episode. Let's just hope Sisko got the memo and makes an appearance.

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[–] SteefLem@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] ironhydroxide@sh.itjust.works 20 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Yeah, if that home is in prison, where you are conveniently exempt from the "no slavery" amendment.

[–] Paragone@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago (2 children)

"Christians".

Here's their bible's directly instructing the most-devout of Christians to be homeless:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mark+6%3A7-13&version=AMPC


They'd better be ready to butcher any 2nd-coming of their Christ, in order to prevent him ( should he exist ) from pouring hell onto their fake-values religion that gaslights about being Christian.

What despicable evil.

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[–] blahsay@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've got this idea. Maybe all the homeless people should be rounded up and sent to an island somewhere.

We will call that place...Ustralia.

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[–] crusa187@lemmy.ml 10 points 8 months ago

Going to need to build a whole lot more of those private, for-profit prisons in order to support this.

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