SPOKANE, Wash. — The City of Spokane has joined more than a dozen other cities across the country petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to review and overturn decisions made by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that they say have severely hampered how local jurisdictions can respond to the homeless crisis.
The two decisions in question—Johnson v. Grants Pass and Martin v. Boise—prohibit cities from enforcing anti-public camping and sit and lie ordinances, if there’s a lack of available public shelter beds.
“We have to remove limitations on our ability to address the homeless crisis as cities,” Woodward said in a press conference on Friday afternoon. “We are right now having to spend more of our resources than we really want on those night-by-night emergency low barrier shelters. We need to be able to invest in other resources that we know move people out of homelessness.”
City Council Member Jonathan Bingle said overturning these cases would allow each jurisdiction to address homelessness how they see fit.
“One of the difficulties that we run into–to provide the services that are essentially mandated–as the City of Spokane requires resources that we don’t always have,” Bingle said. “Because we do have different challenges than Seattle, Tacoma and Boise–we have unique Spokane challenges, and for us to best address this issue in our community we need to be able to have control.”
Woodward said the biggest difference in the city’s response if the rulings are overturned would be the ability to compel people into addiction treatment or other services.
“This balances out this challenge that we have of getting people connected to resources,” Woodward said. “How do we address people who don’t want those resources, and how do we keep our cities and communities safe?”
Lisa Brown, Woodward’s opponent in November’s mayoral election, agrees that more local control over the homelessness response would be ideal.
“I certainly don’t object to the city joining that challenge,” Brown said. “But here’s the thing, the mayor keeps making the same mistake, and I think that’s thinking you can tell people where not to go and that’s going to solve the homelessness problem in Spokane. That’s not the answer, and we’ve gotta take that on–where can people go.”
What comes from the petition next is unclear, but it’s important to note the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge to Martin v. Boise in 2019.
The Supreme Court’s next term starts on Oct. 2.
