The Supreme Court Prioritizes Punishment Over Housing

Posted July 18, 2024

With the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Johnson v. Grants Pass, the justices have given cities the OK to arrest people for sleeping outside with a pillow or blanket, even when there are no safe shelter options. This is the most significant case related to homelessness in 40 years.

The case originated in Grants Pass, Oregon, a city facing a severe shortage of affordable housing. As in Grants Pass and many cities in Arizona, a root cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing. Instead of finding solutions to this housing crisis or funding supportive services, lawmakers are choosing to turn the homeless into criminals.

The solution to homelessness is not arresting and punishing homeless people.

The Cicero Institute, an out-of-state special interest group, is spreading disinformation about our state government’s funding to solve the homelessness crisis. In an op-ed, its policy director falsely claimed that Arizona spends $1 billion on the housing crisis without any results.

This is far from the truth.

These false claims ignore the evidence that sweeping homeless encampments undermines homeless individuals’ paths to stability, gainful employment, and housing opportunities.

The Cicero Institute is a well-funded and extremist “think tank” founded by Austin tech billionaire and venture capitalist Joe Londsal, who has profited from the privatization of prison and parole systems. It is in his financial interest to criminalize the homeless and create more bodies to send to the criminal system. Prison beds are not homes, and the primary benefactor of the Cicero Institute makes his billions from filling private prison beds.

The Cicero Institute makes policy recommendations under the false claims that they are advocating for our needs. It fought for the lowering of due process protections to involuntarily commit homeless individuals to state psychiatric institutions, paired with threat of jail or $5,000 fines for non-compliance with out-patient treatment. This proposal violates the human rights of individuals experiencing homelessness and erodes their self-determination and autonomy, all while avoiding the real issue at hand — a lack of affordable and accessible housing for all Arizonans.

Its actual goals are to strip our already underserved homeless populations of critical support and to cut funding for permanently affordable housing that actually would uplift our communities.

Reflecting on the Grants Pass case, I put myself in these numbers and stories. While studying at Arizona State University West, I was homeless. I was couch-surfing, keeping a change of clothes in a backpack and sleeping in my car. If the current attitude of criminalizing people in unstable living situations was in effect then, my life could have been permanently derailed.

Let’s be clear: There is no silver bullet solution to the housing crisis and the homelessness it causes, but we must remember there are people behind statistics — people like myself. And punishing the people suffering most from our predatory housing market is not the answer.

The solution to homelessness is not arresting and punishing homeless people. My life would not have been helped if I was facing charges for sleeping in my car when I was a student.

With both predatory think tanks and our nation’s highest court threatening the well-being of homeless individuals, it is essential that we take action. The Center for Popular Democracy, Fuerte Arts Movement and our coalition of housing justice champions are calling for real action from our government to end the housing crisis in our communities — not by divesting, but by investing in permanent and deeply affordable housing.

We need more investment in legal assistance for eviction defense. We need the right to counsel as an important solution to the homelessness crisis. We need to create publicly and community owned housing to compete with the equity giants controlling our housing and rental stock.

The solution to being homeless or housing insecure has to include having enough affordable housing for everyone who needs it. Lawmakers listening to think-tanks like Cicero Institute are discouraging investment into real solutions and criminalizing those struggling to find stable and affordable housing.

Enough is enough. We need lawmakers focused on policy that matches the cost of living to the housing costs of their constituents. Arizona deserves better than a predatory for-profit housing market and mass incarceration.

Dominique Medina is an 8th generation Arizonan, musician and community organizer; co-founder of the Fuerte Arts Movement and campaign manager of the Rent is Too High campaign. This

commentary is republished from Arizona Mirror under a Creative Commons license.