Important Takeaways:

• Line between housed and homeless growing thinner across America
• On April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson—a case which aims to determine whether local governments can make it a crime for someone to live outside and unsheltered if they have no home.
• Proponents argue that criminalizing public camping is a necessary measure for cities seeking to deal with unsafe and unsanitary homeless encampments. Opponents argue that criminalizing the involuntarily homeless only compounds injustice and inequality.
• The hotly contested case is the latest eruption of a long-simmering problem that is rapidly becoming a full-blown crisis in communities around the country. And regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, a stubborn fact remains: Neither strict nor lenient laws will end homelessness. But a systematic and community-wide focus on homelessness prevention measures just might.
• A January 25 report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies estimated that over 650,000 Americans experienced homelessness in 2023—up almost 50% from 2015. Costs of renting and home ownership have skyrocketed while wages largely stagnate. The Harvard report found that half of U.S. households are “cost-burdened” (meaning that 30-50% of monthly income goes to housing), and 12 million people are “severely cost-burdened.” These Americans stand one accident, health setback, or employment disruption away from eviction.

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