Housing, Not Handcuffs - TomDispatch.com

Housing, Not Handcuffs - TomDispatch.com Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes, Don’t Grind the Faces of the Poor Posted on May 21, 2024 Be shocked, very shocked. As TomDispatch regular Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes, both of whom play key roles in the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice, make clear today, the way this country has dealt with the homeless, whose numbers have soared recently, has hardly been impressive (though it was certainly better during the pandemic years). Worse yet, as they report, there’s a case before the all-too-well-housed Supreme Court that, if five of the six conservative — and that’s a polite word for them these days — justices concur, will criminalize misery in a genuinely original fashion. It will essentially make it possible for community after community to declare homelessness illegal. And given recent rulings, don’t be faintly surprised if (when?) they do so. As PBS’s Supreme Court expert Marcia Coyle, who listened to the oral arguments in the case, Grants Pass v. Johnson, commented: “It does seem as though the conservative majority is leaning towards the city [of Grants Pass, Oregon]. And the implications are huge… because so many cities are dealing with this problem and what the Supreme Court has to say about what Grants Pass can do is going to affect how all the other cities try to address this problem.” And while you’re at it, imagine that, if the 2024 election goes the way the latest polls are suggesting, four-plus years from now such a ruling could seem mild. If Donald Trump and crew have the chance to appoint yet more Supreme Court justices because liberals Sonya Sotomayor and Elena Kagan decided not to retire during the Biden presidency, the present court could seem almost “liberal” by comparison and, in a sense, so many Americans might find themselves homeless indeed in a grim new all-American world. Tom