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A Supreme Court ruling in the case would allow cities and states to avoid providing shelter altogether if they choose and offer one solution to the homelessness problem: punishment.
As Sotomayor wrote, imposing fines and jailing individuals is not the answer. In her dissent, which she read to the court, the judge told the story of a homeless man in Nashville who was arrested 198 times and issued more than 250 tickets, making it difficult for outreach workers to find him housing. Outreach workers were eventually forced to make him a T-shirt that read, “Please don’t arrest me, my outreach workers are finding me housing.” When the man, who had experienced 20 years of homelessness, found stable housing, “he had no more encounters with the police, no more tickets, and no more arrests.”
If convicting someone for simply sleeping outdoors under a blanket wasn’t scary enough (as some experts fear), the case also opens the door for justices to challenge the unanimous opinion. Robinson v. California, The case held that it was unconstitutional to punish drug addicts for their “addicted state.” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the unanimous opinion overturning Robinson.
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