SCOTUS ruling sparks outrage: Cities can penalize homelessness

SCOTUS ruling sparks outrage: Cities can penalize homelessness

SCOTUS reliance upon language that dehumanizes those who are unhoused ensures perpetual homelessness status.

Commentary by Angela Amos | FāVS News

In June’s ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) issued its opinion, empowering cities to fine, arrest and/or ticket those experiencing homelessness.  

I have poured over the issued opinion. I have read it several times, through the lens of a citizen and the lens as one serving as the program director of Transitions’ Women’s Hearth, and I am angry. Not only is it dismissive of the firsthand experience shared by the plaintiff and other cited cases, it minimizes the experiences of those who suffer at the hands of the laws and policies and those who enforce them. 

This opinion is littered with dehumanizing language. When citing Robinson v. California, the Court does not use person-first language, instead calling someone “a drug addict” and “alcoholic.” Though this may seem like semantics, terms “drug addict” and “alcoholic” distills a person into a problem, further stigmatizing a person and cultivating a negative bias on the part of the reader.

It is only by dehumanizing those who experience being homeless or unhoused that a society can ignore and vilify them. This is furthered by the Court’s belief that people are unhoused because they want to be and due to addiction:  

“The unsheltered may coalesce in these encampments for a range of reasons. Some value the ‘freedom’ encampment living provides compared with submitting to the rules shelters impose…others report that encampments offer a ‘sense of community.’ And still others may seek them out for ‘dependable access to illegal drugs’. In brief, the reasons why someone will go without shelter on A given night vary widely by the person and by the day.

Some city officials indicate that encampments facilitate the distribution of drugs like heroin and fentanyl.“

Language matters

Reading against the grain, this section linguistically alienates those from social safety nets or society itself by speaking over them and applying what, at first read, appears to be a host of illogical reasons for being voluntarily homeless/unhoused/unsheltered. The opinion in the above section is citing others’ experiences and reasons for avoiding a shelter without quoting a person who claims these reasons.

Further, a critical lens is not employed on the part of the writer. How are the flow of drugs counted or accounted for prior to encampments “facilitation?” How are they counted or accounted for after encampments are created or found? What are the rules those eligible for shelter beds are disinclined to follow? Who asked those who refused shelter beds and how were the questions posed/worded?

How a question is asked dictates the answer. The power dynamic of the questioner and those questioned is not addressed.  

Additionally, the ruling shows no curiosity as to why people are unhoused/unsheltered. Asking what systems failed and led a person to being unhoused/unsheltered should be the first step. There is a myriad of studies that ask this question, and they are readily available for citation.

Instead, the SCOTUS opinion assumes a singular reason for being unhoused, as though it is a character flaw, and offers a singular solution: stop being homeless or face incarceration. Fear and shame have never been the catalyst for behavioral changes.  

Listen to their stories

There is only one way to know the story of someone and that is to ask with humble curiosity. Here is what I know.

People refuse to go to shelters for their own reasons and many of them are fear for personal safety; an inability to overcome the barriers a shelter poses, such as being in for check in at a specific time; LGBTQIA+ status; unwillingness to adhere to a religious pericope or practices, due to trauma at the hands of specific religious individuals and institutions; mental illness symptoms; and transportation to said shelter. I know this because participants at Women’s Hearth have told me. They told me because I asked.  

Here is what else I know. Incarceration beats people down. It takes from them their sense of self, their sense of their innate self-worth, their future. Regardless of one’s views of the American incarceration system and criminal justice, there is no debate that it is a significantly traumatic event, one with lasting effects.

The horrible and degrading ways in which People of Color, Indigenous individuals and trans individuals are treated is well documented. Life for these individuals in our country is difficult. The stigma from being incarcerated adds more barriers than were already placed in and around them.

Incarceration also exacerbates existing mental illness symptoms. Those who experience mental illness are also treated poorly and, like those mentioned before, are often incarcerated at higher rates than those who show few to no mental illness symptoms.

The stigma of experiencing a mental illness, lack of supportive housing opportunities, lack of access to mental health care work to ensure housing stability is out of reach. Adding the stigma of past incarcerations is additional cruelty.  

A vicious cycle

To take the ruling to its natural consequences, a person becomes unhoused, they are arrested, they are incarcerated, they get out, they cannot get a job, they cannot find housing, they remain homeless, they get arrested, they are incarcerated and the cycle sustains itself.

Who benefits from this? Obviously, the prison industrial complex, but who else? It does not solve the problem of people being unhoused, rather it shoves the problem to the periphery. It solves nothing. It actively harms the already vulnerable people in our society.  

We have to do better. I firmly believe that a better world is possible, one with ample and supportive housing for all. We have to keep fighting for it. Together.  

The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.