It’s unconstitutional to ban the homeless from sleeping outside, the federal government says
The US Department of Justice has recently weighed in, ruling that to prevent someone from sleeping outdoors when there is no indoor space to sleep is cruel and unusual punishment and violates the 8th amendment to the constitution.
Cities around the country have nefariously ticketed and arrested people sleeping on the street, making it more difficult for them to find housing in the long run. "You have to check those [criminal] boxes on the application forms," says Eric Tars, a senior attorney for the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. "And they don’t say 'were you arrested because you were trying to simply survive on the streets?' They say 'if you have an arrest record, we’re not going to rent to you.'"
Tars' point is a good one. Pinning someone into criminal behavior because there are no legal options is, in itself, criminal. The DOJ has realized this and argued it in a statement of interest it filed in a case in Boise, Idaho, spear-headed by Tars.
In the words of the DOJ:
When adequate shelter space exists, individuals have a choice about whether or not to sleep in public. However, when adequate shelter space does not exist, there is no meaningful distinction between the status of being homeless and the conduct of sleeping in public. Sleeping is a life-sustaining activity — i.e., it must occur at some time in some place. If a person literally has nowhere else to go, then enforcement of the anti-camping ordinance against that person criminalizes her for being homeless.
In other words, it's not a crime to be homeless.
