The Crisis of Homelessness in Grants Pass Faces a Pivotal Supreme Court Case
The city of Grants Pass in Oregon is at the center of a legal battle that could have far-reaching implications for homelessness policy in the United States.
GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Laura Gutowski pitches her tent in the same park where her son grew up playing Little League Baseball. Johnaton Babb’s favorite place to sleep is a few feet from the river where his twin brother died when they were teenagers.
They are two among hundreds of people living outside in this small, conservative city in Southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley, wedged between the Siskiyou and Coast mountains, and their experiences are part of an escalating humanitarian crisis.
That fact does not make Grants Pass exceptional, especially in the American West, where soaring housing costs and a collage of other causes have driven a growing number of vulnerable residents into homelessness. Even so, Grants Pass finds itself in a unique position: This city of 40,000 will have a chance to shape policy decisions countrywide when it defends its anti-camping regulations in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.
The case will decide whether governments can enforce laws against people sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go. The decision, expected in late June, could be the most consequential ruling on the rights of the unhoused in decades, and either sanction or derail increasingly punitive efforts across the country that seek to deal with homelessness.
More than 60 government entities large and small — along with dozens of advocacy organizations, academics, and lawmakers — have filed court briefs in the case, underscoring the widespread interest in the outcome and its potentially sweeping implications for the nation’s state capitals and city streets.
But in the public parks of Grants Pass, where residents with no access to shelter beds take refuge in tents each night, the case is about something much more elemental: Whether they’ll be able to continue to survive in a city many have called home for most of their lives.
“It wasn’t that long ago that I was part of the community,” said Gutowski, sitting at a picnic table in a park about a mile from her old house. “But the more I’m out here, the more angry I get. … They’re not trying to make things better for us, or help us have another shelter, or keep us safe — or help us even medically or mentally. They’re just trying to push, push, push until we give up and say, ‘Fine, I’ll leave town.’”
The events that sparked the Grants Pass case unfolded with little fanfare.
In 2013, city leaders convened a roundtable meeting to address complaints from businesses and residents about increased crime they blamed on the local unhoused population, which they said had spiked after steep budget cuts reduced jail capacity. Officials floated a range of responses, including compiling a “most unwanted list” that would exclude homeless people who break the law from social services and loading offenders onto a bus and shipping them out of town, according to a copy of the meeting’s minutes.
Following the roundtable, the city began strictly enforcing measures, most of which were already on the books, that outlawed sleeping or camping in public spaces like parks and in parked cars, imposing fines ranging from $75 to $295. That sparked an initial legal complaint, which was filed in 2018 on behalf of Debra Blake, Gloria Johnson, and John Logan, three unhoused individuals, who said the city was punishing them unconstitutionally “based on their status of being involuntarily homeless.”
Just as the city stepped up enforcement, its population soared, and housing construction fell behind. Over the past decade, the city has built roughly half the number of units it needs to house everyone. The average rental price for a studio apartment hovers around $1,000 per month.
“The homeless crisis is a symptom of the housing crisis,” said Doug Walker, a member of the Grants Pass Housing Advisory Committee. “We have very little housing and the housing we do have is very expensive, and that drives people onto the street.”
The most recent reliable estimate puts the number of unhoused Grants Pass residents at more than 600, with another 1,000 living on the edge of homelessness, but local service providers say at least twice as many are homeless.
Making matters worse, Grants Pass does not have a homeless shelter. Its only large-scale transitional housing program, the Gospel Rescue Mission, is a privately run religious facility with 138 beds and stringent requirements for participants, such as twice-daily chapel attendance and abstinence from substances and romantic relationships.
The mission’s executive director, Brian Bouteller, supports the city’s position in the case because he believes an outright camping ban will drive more people into the organization’s program and off the street. Allowing unhoused people to stay in the parks, he said, was akin to enabling unlawful behavior. He said he would also welcome additional, privately funded shelters in the city.
“I believe that lawbreakers should be coerced into being law-abiding citizens,” Bouteller said.
In 2020, a district court judge sided with the unhoused individuals behind the lawsuit and barred the city from enforcing its anti-camping ban in parks at night if no other shelter was available. Grants Pass Mayor Sara Bristol said the ruling plunged the city into political paralysis.
Bristol said if it were up to her, the city would spend less time fighting this legal battle and more time building new housing and shelters. But that decision rests with the city council, she said, and a majority has wanted to push ahead with the case. The council president, Vanessa Ogier, declined to comment and directed questions to the city’s legal representatives.
Grants Pass residents have also opposed proposed locations for new shelters and outdoor campsites, and some backed a recall petition that unsuccessfully sought to oust Bristol over her handling of the crisis. A neighborhood watch group has continued to raise alarms about conditions in the city’s cherished green spaces.
At one park on a recent Saturday, parents combed a baseball diamond for drug paraphernalia before their kids took the field and recovered several used needles, said Grants Pass police chief Warren Hensman.
“What we’re seeing from a lot of people in the unhoused community,” Hensman said, “is we have this unpredictable behavior” when individuals are using drugs or experiencing a mental health episode.
Bristol, for her part, said she knows the situation in the parks is untenable, which is why, no matter what the Supreme Court decides, she wants the city to build more shelters fast.
“I want our public spaces to be safe and clean and used as they were intended,” Bristol said. “And I also want to make sure that homeless people have a place where they can be safe and sleep and get help if they want to get help. And I think we can have both, but not everybody thinks that.”
The Supreme Court on Monday will hear the legal battle surrounding the crisis of homelessness in Grants Pass, Oregon. The decision in this case will determine whether governments have the power to enforce laws against homeless people who sleep outside due to a lack of alternative options. The ruling is expected in late June and could have significant implications for homeless policies throughout the country.
Various governmental entities, advocacy organizations, and lawmakers have filed court briefs in support of both sides, highlighting the widespread interest in the case and the potential impact on state and city policies regarding homelessness.
While officials and legal experts debate the constitutionality of the city’s anti-camping regulations, the unhoused residents themselves face more immediate concerns. The lack of affordable housing in Grants Pass, coupled with the absence of a homeless shelter, has led to a dire situation for many residents. Living in public parks has become a harsh reality with limited support and a steady stream of challenges.
The favorable ruling for Grants Pass could lead to more punitive actions against homeless individuals, while a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs could revolutionize how homelessness is approached on a national level. The Grants Pass case highlights the clash between public safety and the protection of basic rights for the unhoused, with potentially far-reaching legal and social consequences.
This is a developing news story, and more details will be provided as the case progresses.
Source: Adapted from original content by Alex Zielinski and Anna V. Smith for The Washington Post
