Will the Supreme Court Make Life Worse for America’s Homeless?

Because nuance is hard to come by. . .

No, the constitutional rights will not change. They will still have protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

The issue is the 9th circuit ruling is overly broad. I fully agree if somebody has nowhere to go, then penalizing them for existing is cruel and unusual. With the stipulations of the Boise shelters, that was certainly the case for the plaintiffs.

However stretching that to "unless there is a shelter bed for everybody, nobody can be penalized for declining a bed" is an illogical conclusion. The difference is individual versus population. If individual A has nowhere they can legally go, they cannot be punished. But that doesn't mean individual B, who does have somewhere to go also cannot be punished.

Using the same logic as the 9th Circuit's ruling, if the government cannot provide a foster home for every child, then we cannot enforce any child endangerment laws. Even if in the hypothetical some child may be able to be placed with a relative, they couldn't be removed from the endangering situation. That's illogical and this ruling needs narrowed in scope.

Edit: I also want to point out that even this post is probably too reductionist. So please add counterpoint, clarifications, etc. One compelling counterpoint I've heard is the difficulty of determining who would be unable to go somewhere. And truthfully I don't have a good argument against it. However I have a hard time accepting when shelter beds have lower occupancy, why no enforcement is allowed.

The bottom line remains these are people, and many desperately need help, some against their will. We need more housing, more support systems, more everything really. But throwing our hands up and allowing the problem to remain unabated is no benefit to the individual nor the community as a whole.