The justices on Monday will consider a challenge to rulings from a California-based appeals court that found punishing people for sleeping outside when shelter space is lacking amounts to unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment.
A political cross section of officials in the West and California, home to nearly one-third of the nation’s homeless population, argue those decisions have restricted them from “common sense” measures intended to keep homeless encampments from taking over public parks and sidewalks.
Advocacy groups say the decisions provide essential legal protections, especially with an increasing number of people forced to sleep outdoors as the cost of housing soars.
The case before the Supreme Court comes from Grants Pass, a small city nestled in the mountains of southern Oregon, where rents are rising and there is just one overnight shelter for adults. As a growing number of tents clustered its parks, the city banned camping and set $295 fines for people sleeping there.
I had to explain to my daughter about private prisons and how the fourteenth amendment exempts prisoners and how the private prison industry benefits from that. I hate having to disillusion her about the country she lives in all the time.
It’s the Thirteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth is Civil Rights.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
Whoops, you are correct. I did not say which amendment it was to her at least.
More importantly, good on you for giving her the education that her school will likely omit!
Thank you!