On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled its biggest decision on homelessness in decades. The 6-3 decision provides state and local officials the ultimate authority to implement and further enforce policies that punish people for sleeping outside, even if they have nowhere else to go.

So how does this affect LA? Well, in many ways, LA is the nation’s biggest and most devastating example of homelessness. 

“Something like 180,000 people are homeless in California, and most of them are living without shelter,” said New York Times reporter Shawn Hubler. 

Associated Press writers Christopher Weber and Michael R. Blood reported that “a federally required tally conducted in January [2024] found 75,312 people were homeless on any given night across the county [of Los Angeles].”

Because of the Supreme Court’s decision, the homeless population will be subject to whatever punishment local officials find necessary. 

Following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, a statement was issued by California Governor, Gavin Newsom, that said “This decision removes the legal ambiguities that have tied the hands of local officials for years and limited their ability to deliver on common-sense measures to protect the safety and well-being of our communities.”

Some Californian’s are conflicted by this decision. Mr. Presley, the Director of Christian Service and Immersion at Notre Dame, said, “In some ways this is a public health issue, and some folks don’t know all that’s good for them, especially when they have some mental health issues. So in some ways, we are getting people the help that they need by forcing. But there is a humane way that you forcibly help somebody.” For Mr. Presley, arresting them is not a humane way to help.

But Newsom does say that he still wants to respect the homeless population, stating, “California remains committed to respecting the dignity and fundamental human needs of all people and the state will continue to work with compassion to provide individuals experiencing homelessness with the resources they need to better their lives.” And also, “California is investing $1 billion as part of the state’s Encampment Resolution Fund (ERF). These dollars are specifically earmarked to help move individuals experiencing homelessness out of dangerous encampments and into shelter and housing.” 

One billion dollars may seem like a lot, but, compared to the $24 billion that California has been spending on homelessness per year since 2019, it’s not as big a number as it needs to be. 

Governor Newsom is in support of the decision, yes, but what happens when certain government officials disagree with him?

New York Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise says, “[Newsom] was planning to reward financially, counties who followed his playbook, and that he was willing to take money away from counties that weren’t using the funding he was giving them, that weren’t enacting his programs to show progress.” 

  Working with Newsom’s programs, San Francisco was quick to crack down on homelessness.

New York Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise said, “San Francisco Mayor, London Breed, […] went directly to an encampment that was outside of a DMV office in San Francisco, and stood there while city workers started to clear it. And she told local authorities there that she not only wanted these encampments cleared, she wanted them to start offering bus tickets to people who had a connection elsewhere.”

ND alumni, John Voelz ‘24, who is now studying Political Sciences at American University, agrees with the right to move homeless people, but not shipping them to other places. Voelz says “I think [local officials] should be allowed to move people off the streets. I don’t think allowing them to be arrested is just, but I think they should be allowed to clean-up the space by just moving them to a homeless shelter or somewhere they can stay the night.” 

As it stands, California doesn’t have enough beds for all the homeless people. Breed’s solution to this problem is to move the homeless people to other parts of the country where they might have connections. In contrast, Bass’s solution is to build more affordable and temporary housing.

In response to the ruling, Mayor Bass released a statement on June 28, criticizing the decision. “This ruling must not be used as an excuse for cities across the country to attempt to arrest their way out of this problem or hide the homelessness crisis in neighboring cities or in jail. Neither will work, neither will save lives and that route is more expensive for taxpayers than actually solving the problem. The only way to address this crisis is to bring people indoors with housing and supportive services. In the City of Los Angeles, we will continue leading with this approach, which helped move thousands more Angelenos inside last year than the year before.”

This doesn’t mean that Los Angeles isn’t working to tackle the homelessness crisis. 

Within her first months as Los Angeles Mayor, Karen Bass signed the Inside Safe program into action. It aims to make a dent in the homeless crisis in LA by “declaring a state of emergency, taking action to dramatically accelerate and lower the cost of building affordable and temporary housing, and moving to maximize the use of City-owned property for temporary and permanent housing.”

While Inside Safe cannot completely eliminate homelessness, in 2023, the first full year of the Bass administration, Inside Safe was responsible for bringing an estimated 21,000 Angelenos experiencing homelessness inside. 

Inside Safe brings people off the streets and into temporary housing, supportive services, and/or affordable permanent housing.

In our own ND community, Ms. Alameda, an Ethics and Morality teacher at ND, agrees with Karen Bass’s solution to homelessness. “I think we definitely need to make sure that we are treating the unhoused as human beings, because they are human beings, and sometimes we forget and we think that they are less than us just because they are living on the streets.”

Alameda continued, “I definitely think putting more effort into getting them the help that they need from doctors, psychiatrists, people like that would be in the better interest of children of God. I don’t think [punishing them for sleeping outside] is going to solve anything, because they’re not going to stay in jail, they are not going to get better in jail, so it is just using our resources incorrectly.”

Suffice it to say, LA still has a long way to go on solving its homelessness crisis, and even though the U.S. Supreme Court and Governor Newsom have allowed LA to use more forceful tactics to move the homeless, LA remains committed to helping the homeless in ways that do not involve force.