Brian Coddington, Communications Director, 509.625.6740
Friday, September 29, 2023 at 12:24 p.m.
The City of Spokane joined more than a dozen other jurisdictions across the country, including Seattle and Tacoma, in formally requesting the U.S. Supreme Court review two cases that have restricted and directed how communities approach homelessness.
The petition asks the Supreme Court to “restore the power to address homelessness to local communities and their elected officials” arguing that two Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rulings are a “remodeling of the Constitution’s architecture” and use “a ‘shelter availability’ test that lacks any limiting principle.” Mayor Nadine Woodward directed the City Attorney to join attorneys representing the cities of Albuquerque, Anchorage, Colorado Springs, Henderson, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Providence, Redondo Beach, Saint Paul, San Diego, Seattle, Tacoma, Honolulu, San Bernadino County, the International Municipal Lawyers Association, National League of Cities, National Association of Counties, and North Dakota League of Cities.
“Homelessness is an extremely complex challenge that requires a multitude of resources and approaches,” Woodward said. “We have to remove limitations on our ability to address individual needs as cities. This is a reasonable request and critically important to our future.”
“While homelessness is a nationwide challenge, the solutions need to be aligned to individual need and that is best determined locally,” Councilmember Jonathan Bingle said. “We’re asking the courts to return that local control to cities.”
The petition challenges Ninth Circuit cases Johnson v. Grants Pass and Martin v. Boise that have shaped the homelessness response of communities. The court ruled in the Johnson case that the city was unable to enforce public camping prohibitions unless the city provided shelter beds for each of the estimated 600 homeless individuals in the city. The decision reaffirmed the determination made four years earlier in Martin, which essentially requires cities to allows camping in public spaces.
“As a practical matter, these decisions compel local governments to choose between providing shelter or surrendering public lands to encampments that harm local communities,” the petitions argues.
The petition states that in the past 15 years, homeless populations have spiked in regional pockets of the country, including 31.6% in California, 40.3% in New York, 40.9% in Washington, 47.8% in Oregon, and 51.6% in Minnesota. More than half of people experiencing homelessness live in the four corners of the continental states, with more than one-third on the west coast. States with the highest percentage of homeless population are California (30%), New York (13%), Florida (5%), and Washington (4%) with varying reasons for the growth, according to the petition.
“What is clear, however, is that while homelessness presents vexing societal problem for local governments across the country, the decisions in Martin and Johnson have an outsized impact given the disproportionately large homeless population out West,” the petition argues.
The petition references dozens of cases, pieces of legislation, and articles used to form the basis of the argument and surmises that “the friction in many communities affected by homelessness is at a breaking point” due to the impacts encampments have on surrounding areas. The impacts to parks and sidewalks, volumes of garbage, human waste and other hazards like used needles are among the most visible.
In Spokane, based on year-to-date activity, the City anticipates it will remove 800,000 pounds of litter and debris related to encampments.
The petition seeks to remove court-imposed barriers to localized solutions, saying “it is crucial that states and local governments have the latitude to find effective solutions to this humanitarian crisis while simultaneously protecting the remaining community’s right to safely enjoy public spaces.”
