Tomorrow the Supreme Court hears arguments about whether laws limiting

homeless encampments in public places are unconstitutional because they

punish people for being homeless. The cases about laws in Grants Pass, Oregon, a city of about 40,000 in the state

southwest corner, but the outcome could reshape policies nationwide for years

to come. Charlie Willison teaches public health at Cornell University.

She's the author of Ungoverned and Out of Sight,

Public Health and the political crisis of homelessness

in the United States.

Charlie, in the filings for this case,

grants pass as well, these laws are about public health

and public safety.

The two homeless people who have brought this case

say it's really about pushing homeless people out of the

grants pass getting them to move on to go someplace else what's your take on that

this is such an important question and what this case is really getting at is a deep tension that American cities face

when thinking about how to respond to homelessness across the country,

but especially in West Coast cities that have very limited shelter capacity and are also in the midst of a housing crisis.

And these two tensions that I'd like to emphasize are that cities generally use much more punitive policies, these criminalization approaches that are at the

heart of Johnson versus Grants Past to effectively punish people who are experiencing

homelessness for behaviors that are associated with the realities of homelessness.

Now importantly, the use of these punitive policies actually facilitate cycles of homelessness and

does not effectively end homelessness.

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