Activists at Supreme Court protest move to penalize homelessness Wishram

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered Monday outside the U.S. Supreme Court, waving signs that read “Housing Not Handcuffs” and “Housing Dignity” as they protested moves to legally penalize homelessness while justices heard oral arguments on a case that experts say could change how the country treats its homeless people.

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At the center of the court case is Grants Pass, Ore., a city of 40,000 that in 2013 began aggressively enforcing anti-camping legislation, with fines and possible jail time, aimed directly at the area’s unsheltered communities. In 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed a lower court’s ruling that Grants Pass’s actions violated the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments.

“Can you imagine anything more cruel and usual than throwing somebody in jail for having a blanket?” Jesse Rabinowitz, the National Homelessness Law Center’s communications director and the emcee for Monday’s demonstration, told the crowd outside the court. “Does that seem fair to you?”

In the morning chill, hundreds of demonstrators lay near the Supreme Court steps under emergency blankets that caught the sun — a symbolic nod to the $295 ticket for sleeping outside with a blanket that Grants Pass’s authorities were handing out, Rabinowitz said in his remarks before Monday’s crowd. Many of the protesters had come from New York City, Philadelphia and elsewhere to join the rally in D.C.

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Activists at Supreme Court protest move to penalize homelessness

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