Supreme Court to Address Homelessness Crisis: Can Cities Punish the Homeless?

(April 22, 2024. El Venezolano) – When Helen Cruz set up her tent in a city park a few years ago and turned it into her home, she chose the place for a reason: she wanted to be close to the houses she cleans for a living but she couldn’t afford it.

“People see it with irony,” said Cruz, 49. “I’ve never seen it like that.”

What Cruz didn’t know then was that living in a park in Grants Pass, Oregon, would put her in the middle of a national debate that will reach the Supreme Court next Monday. can cities respond to the rise in homelessness by punishing them.

In the most important appeal against homeless Americans to reach the highest court in decades, the justices will hear This Monday the arguments about whether fines for people who live on the streets are “cruel and unusual” and go against the Eighth Amendment.

City and state officials are closely monitoring the issue and are unsure how to deal with the increase in homelessness and encampments that have sprung up under bridges and in urban parks across the country. The people who live in these camps also follow him and are afraid of the efforts to criminalize the population instead of building shelters and affordable housing.

“No one wants to be out here,” said Cruz, who has since moved to a church where she also works as a caretaker. “We know that parks are for families and children. The truth is we have nowhere to go. There are no homes”review CNN.