US Supreme Court does not find evictions of homeless people from unauthorized areas unconstitutional

The United States Supreme Court has decided that authorities in a small town in the state of Oregon acted lawfully by banning homeless people from certain areas and their behavior does not constitute abuse.

This decision is one of the most important in recent decades regarding the more than 653,000 homeless people in the country, according to data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Of them, 250,000 live outdoors on a specific winter night, the department says.

The ruling stems from a ordinance passed by the town of Grants Pass, a small city of 40,000 in southern Oregon, which decided to ban homeless people from camping or sleeping on public property or in its parks.

Those who violate this regulation are exposed to fines of 290 euros and, in the case of repetition, could spend up to 30 days in prison and end up fined 1,200 euros.

The decision, by 6 votes to 3, was led by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who sided with the local authorities, stating that “federal judges cannot match the ‘collective wisdom’ of the American people when it comes to dealing with this issue.”

This conservative decision, paradoxically, benefits states with a Democratic majority such as California, where prominent representatives have asked the Supreme Court for a decision of this type to deal more effectively with the presence of homeless people on their streets.

The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, declared last fall his desire for the case to end up in the Supreme Court. “And this is a shocking statement for a progressive Democrat like me,” he acknowledged in comments to the news portal Politico.