The $7.5 billion ruling?
Last week the oft-overturned Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, via a 2-1 ruling, handed down a decision that is already sending shock waves through
A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the Los Angeles Police Department cannot arrest people for sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks on skid row [just east of the historic core. — Ed.], saying such enforcement amounts to cruel and unusual punishment because there are not enough shelter beds for the city’s huge homeless population.
Skid Row in
LA’s historic core and Central; Business District
Using the Eighth Amendment in this way is an unprecedented reach (the LA Times called it “novel” and “shaky constitutional reasoning“) even by the standards of this court:
We’re extending the law’s extent.
The decision was issued by the
The Ninth Circuit has the nation’s highest rate of overturned decisions, and this one was split 2-1, with a lengthy and convoluted opinion:
At the time they were cited or arrested, Appellants had no choice other than to be on the streets. Even if Appellants’ past volitional acts contributed to their current need to sit, lie, and sleep on public sidewalks at night, those acts [that is, why they became homeless — Ed.] are not sufficiently proximate to the conduct at issue here. […]
The Eighth Amendment prohibits the City from punishing involuntary sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter in the City of
and a strong dissent:
The majority … gets there by cobbling together the views of dissenting and concurring justices, creating a circuit conflict on standing, and overlooking both Supreme Court precedent, and our own [Ninth Circuit. — Ed.] that restrict the substantive component of the Eighth Amendment to crimes not involving an act. […] Los Angeles Municipal Code §41.18(d) does not punish people simply because they are homeless. It targets conduct — sitting, lying, or sleeping on city sidewalks — that can be committed by those with homes as well as those without. [Bit cute, there, judge. — Ed.] (Dissent, page 1, emphasis in original)
Makeshift housing on Skid Row (click here for more gripping photos)
Dissenting judge Pamela A. Rymer clearly sees the consequences:
In other words, [the majority concludes that] the City cannot penalize the status of being homeless plus the condition of being homeless without shelter that exists by virtue of the City’s failure to provide sufficient housing on any given night. The ramifications of so holding are quire extraordinary. (Dissent, pages 1, 3)
Indeed so. Whatever one thinks of the matter, there seems little doubt the ruling is a major development:
“This will have a big impact not only on
Should the ruling stand, the issue will not be whether a city is precluded from rousting the homeless, but whether a city then has a financial duty to house them.
The costs rapidly add up
For if rousting the homeless is cruel and unusual punishment (the majority’s basis for its ruling), is the court therefore obligated to conclude that leaving the homeless who “are not on the streets of Skid Row by informed choice” on the streets is itself a form of cruel and unusual punishment, and order the city to help them off those mean streets?
For living in Skid Row is clearly dreadful:
For decades, Downtown has hosted most of
Consider this impassioned description, penned by city councilwoman Jan Perry, whose district includes Skid Row:
What about the fact that many of the homeless still on the street on skid row refuse shelter for the night because they do not wish to (or are not able to) abide by the rules—including not using illegal substances or alcohol?
Truth in advertising?
The Los Angeles Downtown News cites an estimate that as many as 75% of the Skid Row homeless have mental health problems.
Or that the streets of skid row at night become a free-for-all, a market for illegal and bizarre behavior that most people cannot begin to imagine?
And what about the fact that no one is arrested by the LAPD before being offered a bed for the night at a local shelter? Or that people may be taken into custody for their own protection from an environment that is dangerous and where the most common crime is transient-on-transient assault?
Ms. Perry appears to be putting the city’s money where her mouth is:
Since her election, Perry has worked aggressively to begin rebuilding the community also known as Skid Row. She earmarked funds to establish a year round Emergency Homeless Shelter Program and worked to promote regional solutions to address homelessness. In 2003, Councilwoman Perry effectively lobbied both the mayor and members of the Los Angeles City Council to provide more funding to keep the city’s portion of the emergency shelter system that was operating from December to mid March open year-round. This unprecedented effort has allowed for an additional 250,000 bed nights with supportive services for the homeless. [Equivalent to about 700 new units. — Ed.]
Perry continues to maintain these services and has been successful in keeping the year-round shelter system open in the City of
Does that make sense? What about the fact that two-thirds of our region’s cities do not even allow shelters — in violation of state law –
And active:
– and that as a direct result, homeless people from all over are dumped on skid row?
What constitutes shelter for the night.
Indeed, the 2-1 majority decision even cited
Recently, it has been reported that local hospitals and law enforcement agencies from nearby suburban areas have been caught ‘dumping’ homeless individuals in Skid Row upon their release. (Opinion, page 5)
As the Los Angeles Downtown News put it, with crude vividness:
Let’s be blunt. No one wants the homeless. Not Downtown, not the suburbs, not anywhere.
Seeing people living on the streets stirs many disturbing emotions: Guilt, that we as individuals haven’t done and don’t know the right specific things to do and might not do them even if we knew. Fear, that the homeless person we just stepped over on our way to work might be one of the 75% of them with mental health problems, and we’re not sure which kind and if they are dangerous. (Also fear that we might be a couple of paychecks or a bad business cycle away from being in dire straits ourselves.) Grief, when we realize how uncomfortable they must be with nowhere to sleep, eat, wash or relieve themselves. Rage, from the frustration at not being able to solve this awful problem, and why the heck aren’t they working anyway, and how did government let this happen, and where are the police when we need them? And all sorts of other irrational and rational objections to their presence.
The decision about who will take responsibility for the homeless is a battle that started the moment the supervisors’ votes were counted.
The News also tartly previews the inter-municipal arguments:
Downtown’s argument will be that it has shouldered the burden for decades. Downtown will insist that for the sake of fairness, and oh yes, for the sake of the people involved, it would be better not to concentrate them in such a large group, one that draws so many predators.
The argument from the suburbs will be even more frenzied, as local leaders see for the first time ever the chink in the long-held policy of concentrating the homeless in Downtown. The opponents of the supervisors’ plan will testify that stabilization centers and anything to help the homeless are absolutely necessary, but their neighborhood is the wrong place, that now is the wrong time, that anything resembling a shelter will hurt local business. They’ll say that the presence of the homeless will lower property values and impact quality of life. And they’ll be right, but that’s not the relevant point.
There is, in other words, no way out of the dilemma. If you conclude that homelessness is an involuntary condition, then you have no escaping the conclusion it’s up to you to help them. And that math of a campaign to end homelessness is stunning:
50,000 more homeless people than beds in
x $150,000 per bed (author’s estimate, probably low)
= $7,500,000,000 to create enough homeless shelters in
Brother, can you spare $7.5 billion?
My estimate excludes operating costs, which will almost certainly exceed any rent payments.
That’s 150 times what the City of
Financially, it gets worse.
Councilwoman Perry also points out a very plausible unintended consequence:
The 9th Circuit’s decision will only reinforce the view of law enforcement authorities and mental health officials from outside
In other words, if where the homeless sleep is where they must be housed, why not export them to
Anywhere but here?
For over two centuries we have periodically sought refuge in the fiction that if we could simply box up the indigent underclass and ship them somewhere far away (Australia?), society’s problems would be solved.
Any of these …
If they died on the way, well that was just a byproduct of their wretched lives before we packed them below decks.
… got you this.
It never works. But the alternatives are desperate, expensive, or both.
Now, this was a holding by a sub-panel.
It can be appealed to the full court, and (either now or after a full court decision) to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile:
The long-awaited decision effectively kills [Why? No Supreme Court appeal? — Ed.] Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton’s original blueprint for cleaning up skid row by removing homeless encampments that rise each evening throughout the 50-block downtown district. That plan has been on hold for three years, and city leaders have recently backed a less aggressive policy.
As might be expected, Chief Bratton is urging an appeal:
The city attorney should challenge a court ruling barring the arrest of homeless people sleeping on sidewalks, Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton said Tuesday.
This is too big to let slide. Bet on an appeal.
