TomRoushOnline

The Supreme Court has announced it will take up a critical case from the ever-creative Ninth Circuit: Gloria Johnson, et al. v. City of Grants Pass. A majority of the judges ruled in favor of the plaintiffs — in this case, three homeless individuals — and held that they had a right to sleep in public parks and on public property if they were “involuntarily homeless.” This ruling, in effect, creates a class of people with rights reserved exclusively for themselves. For example, if I’m not homeless, I can’t camp downtown in a public park. But if I fall into this special protected category, I can, in essence, commandeer public property for private use — and camp there. Or, as the court puts it, “sleep.”

Justia summarize the case as such:

The City of Grants Pass maintains ordinances that preclude homeless persons from using a blanket, a pillow, or a cardboard box for protection from the elements while sleeping within the City’s limits. Three homeless individuals filed a putative class action complaint against the City, arguing a number of City ordinances were unconstitutional. The district court certified a class of “involuntarily homeless” persons and later granted partial summary judgment in favor of the class. The district court issued a permanent injunction prohibiting enforcement against the class members of some City ordinances, at certain times, in certain places. The City appealed.
 
In the amended opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part the district court’s summary judgment and permanent injunction in favor of Plaintiffs; affirmed certification of a class of “involuntary homeless” persons; and remanded. The panel rejected the City’s argument that the district court lacked jurisdiction because Plaintiffs’ claims were moot or because Plaintiffs failed to identify any relief that was within a federal court’s power to redress. The panel held that the district court did not err by finding Plaintiffs satisfied the requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a) such that a class could be certified under Rule 23(b)(2). The panel affirmed the district court’s ruling that the City of Grants Pass could not enforce its anticamping ordinances against homeless persons for the mere act of sleeping outside with rudimentary protection from the elements or for sleeping in their car at night when there was no other place in the City for them to go.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/20-35752/20-35752-2023-07-05.html

Here we see, again, the law surrendering to a multidecade assault on the English language that has many fronts but a common goal. The very term “homeless” can be added to “undocumented person” and “birthing person” in the class of nouns used to confuse and misdirect thinking and opinion. The difference between myself, who owns a home, and the average “homeless person” is a lot more than owning a home. What differentiates us is our thoughts, patterns, beliefs, ideas, habits, values, and methods of choosing how to spend each day. My path led me to live in Houston, Texas, in a small home in the suburbs, but other paths — including those I could have taken — can lead to a person being homeless in Grants Pass, Oregon. Habits and values are not equal, and therefore, life outcomes vary. There can hardly be any “involuntarily homeless” people in Grants Pass, or anywhere else. They made a series of choices over the years. Every outcome in the United States, which is a prosperous place where jobs go wanting, is a product of choices. The loud friends of the “undocumented persons” claim there are many jobs that “Americans won’t do,” and they are right about that. People make choices, and most outcomes are the product of a long series of decisions — good or bad.

I’d suggest that a decision tree that leads to sleeping in a public park in Grants Pass is a bad one, but others may disagree. They may think, for example, that a decision tree that leads to having to go to work five days a week like I do is a sign of imaginative failure. My house costs money, and my job provides it. Why should those who choose a path that leads to not having a home be given a special class of “involuntary homeless” if they chose a path different than mine and ended up with no place to sleep indoors?

Much of what this comes down to is the right to fail and make everyone else pay. If I mismanage my life so badly that I am literally sleeping outside, do I have the right, because of my state, to commandeer public resources? The Ninth Circuit says the answer is yes. Can the law distinguish between involuntary homeless and voluntary homeless? If they can, how might they do so? According to this case, there is no “voluntary homeless,” though every person who has given up on having a fixed address has made choices that were completely voluntary.

This case — and so many other aspects of American life — creates a sort of moral hazard by making it rewarding to fail. Rights are accrued to the losers, to the detriment of the winners. This trend grows from the massive therapeutic impulse in the United States that refuses to render judgment about life outcomes. Everything is now said to be the product of the “trauma-informed” consensus on what drives life outcomes. Those who drink too much or do drugs are not responsible for their lot in life, since addiction, it is said, is a disease — just like cancer. How did they get this way? It was trauma. The homeless are suffering from “mental health issues,” which may be true enough, but even those have a strong element of choice. Every serial killer was a victim first, which may also be true, but the choice to kill was still made — when others chose differently. One could go on and on with examples of this exact phenomenon.

Of course, it was not always this way. There is a strong element of cultural change here, which goes back to the counterculture heyday. There were — and still are — laws against what is termed vagrancy, which is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “the state of living as a vagrant; homelessness.” Being homeless is being a vagrant. It was never assumed that the homeless had no power or say in their state, or that “homeless” was different from “vagrant.” These men — and a few women — were well known in the recent past. Their lifestyle was a choice, and they didn’t hide who they were or what they were all about.

Their condition was captured perfectly in the song King of the Road, written and performed by Roger Miller. Here are the lyrics, which offer a perfect picture of who the country saw these men as being in the early 1960s:

Trailer’s for sale or rent
Rooms to let, 50 cents
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no cigarettes

Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road

Third boxcar, midnight train
Destination Bangor, Maine
Old, worn out suit and shoes
I don’t pay no union dues

I smoke old stogies I have found
Short, but not too big around
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road

I know every engineer on every train
All of their children, and all of their names
And every handout in every town
Every lock that ain’t locked, when no one’s around

I sing, trailers for sale or rent
Rooms to let, 50 cents
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no cigarettes

Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom
Buys an eight by twelve four-bit room
I’m a man of means by no means
King of the road

Trailers for sale or rent
Rooms to let, 50 cents
No phone, no pool, no pets
I ain’t got no cigarettes
Ah, but, two hours of pushin’ broom buys…

So, two hours of pushing a broom kept the King of the Road out of jail, and then he could hop a train out of town. Along the way, there were sure to be some unlocked locks — opportunities to steal things he might need — and all of this served the purpose of living a life on the road, which offered a certain kind of cheap freedom. In other words, there was no trauma — there was a choice. We are now more than 50 years past that song, and today, the Ninth Circuit has elevated homelessness to the status of a protected class, beyond the merciless clutches of the lowly city of Grants Pass, which merely wants to preserve public property for the public.

The Supreme Court is taking up this case, and one would hope the City of Grants Pass prevails in a 9–0 sweep — but one can’t be so sure. The “trauma-informed” consensus runs deep, and the courts may decide that the “homeless” have all-powerful rights and can “sleep,” “camp,” or whatever they choose to call it, wherever they want. They won’t be pushing brooms — but we will, cleaning up their filth as they shamble, directionless and degraded, through the public spaces we all pay for.

Here is Dean Miller performing the song a few years ago. I went to college with Dean, and we called him the Prince of the Road.

Update: Grants Pass won their case, but of course, another judge halted enforcement based on any set of objections. A Judge’s Republic is no kind of democracy. This is why we can’t have nice tings.

Fresh lawsuit hits Oregon city at the heart of Supreme Court ruling on homeless encampments