City Attorney Praises Homelessness Ruling; Mayor Says Seattle's Encampment Removal Policies Won't Change
By Erica C. Barnett
Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison released a statement praising the US Supreme Court's decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, which effectively overturns a Ninth Circuit ruling, Martin v. Boise, that has forced cities to make at least a nominal offer of shelter before removing homeless encampments.
“Today’s ruling makes it clear that determining policy to address homelessness is a task for locally elected leaders," Davison said in a statement. "This decision emphasizes the importance of local authority. The variety of local jurisdictions throughout the country that supported Grants Pass in this litigation demonstrates that local governments recognize the importance of creating safe and healthy environments for everyone in the community, a challenging task made even more difficult by the constraints of the Ninth Circuit’s prior ruling."
In the ruling, which was widely anticipated by homeless advocates and service providers, the court upheld a law in Grants Pass, Oregon that criminalizes the use of blankets, pillows, and protective gear while sleeping in public, including inside a vehicle. Homelessness, the court majority ruled, is not a state of being like mental illness or addiction, but an action that a person could effectively choose not to engage in.
Davison, a Republican, previously wrote an amicus brief in the Grants Pass case, arguing that encampments "have an intensely negative impact impact on neighboring residents. Most report a plummeting quality of life, and businesses exasperated by the increased crime and decreased sales will often relocate to new markets."
In the brief, Davison also claimed that living unsheltered (and thus sleeping unsheltered) is a form of voluntary "conduct," not a state of being. The court echoed this argument in its ruling, saying that the anti-camping laws in Grants Pass criminalize sleeping outdoors regardless of a person's "status." A housed person who chooses to sleep in a park overnight, the court majority wrote, is not treated differently under the law than someone who sleeps in a park because they don't have a home.
In its ruling, the court zeroed in on statistics from the city of Seattle, which claimed that 60 percent of people simply "refuse" legitimate offers of shelter. As we've reported many times, an "offer" of shelter may not be viable for any number of reasons. Many shelters have strict abstinence or behavioral policies that make them inappropriate with addiction or mental illness. Many are individual or single-gender shelters that require people to leave their partners; many ban pets or do not allow people to bring more than a few possessions.
Additionally, shelters are often located far away from the places homeless people live. Like housed people, homeless people build communities with other people and live in neighborhoods; someone who grew up in Ballard and became homeless there may be understandably reluctant to relocate across for a temporary shelter bed.
Seattle adopted rules (known as the Multidisciplinary Administrative Rules, or MDARs) in 2017 saying that the city won't remove an encampment without providing 72 hours notice and offering each resident a shelter bed, except in limited circumstances in which a tent or encampment constitutes an "obstruction or immediate hazard."
In practice, the city has interpreted "obstruction" to include virtually any tent or encampment located on public property, including all areas of public parks, allowing the city's encampment removal team to bypass the required notice and shelter offer.
A spokesman for Mayor Bruce Harrell's office says Harrell has no plans to propose legislation changing the rules to make it easier to remove encampments now that there's no requirement that cities offer shelter to people they displace.
"Our approach to resolving encampments is based on data, best practices, and our values – and the Supreme Court decision will not affect that approach," Harrell said in a statement. "Our approach leads with offering shelter and services as part of the encampment resolution process, ensuring people come indoors at the same time as we keep public spaces clean and accessible for everyone. The City’s Unified Care Team closely follows the requirements set out in the MDARs, grounding the City’s encampment resolution work in the compassionate approach we believe in."