The Supreme Court issued its ruling in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson on June 28, 2024. The court held, 6-3, that cities may enforce anti-camping ordinances without violating the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The ruling reversed the Ninth Circuit's prior interpretation that had required cities to demonstrate sufficient available shelter before enforcing anti-camping laws. Twenty-one months later, the operational reality is substantially more complicated than the legal ruling suggested it would be. Grants Pass itself has four homeless camps within two blocks of City Hall.

Understanding what changed legally and what did not change operationally is essential for district managers trying to develop effective approaches to unsheltered homelessness in their corridors. The ruling is not nothing — it materially expanded the legal authority of cities in the Ninth Circuit and, by extension, provided persuasive authority for cities in other circuits facing similar challenges. But it is also not sufficient, as the situation in Grants Pass itself demonstrates.

The Gap Between Legal Permission and Operational Reality

Grants Pass is operating within Oregon state law, not just federal constitutional law. Oregon has state-level constraints on anti-camping enforcement that the federal Supreme Court ruling did not affect. The state requires that anti-camping ordinances be "objectively reasonable" — a standard interpreted through Oregon case law and administrative guidance that the Grants Pass ruling did not address.

Disability Rights Oregon reached a settlement with Grants Pass in August 2025 requiring the city to maintain a 150-person resting space through the end of 2026. Shelter construction is targeted for June 2026. The city is operating under a consent arrangement that constrains its enforcement approach even after the Supreme Court ruling. This is the operational reality in the city that gave its name to the ruling.

Washington State has pending legislation — HB 2489 — that would reinstate a shelter prerequisite for anti-camping enforcement, effectively reinstating the Ninth Circuit standard that the Supreme Court overruled at the federal level. If passed, Washington cities would face the same operational constraints they faced before the ruling, under state law rather than federal constitutional law. As of publication, HB 2489 is unresolved.

What District Managers Observed in the 21 Months

The pattern across corridor districts that have operated in this environment for the 21 months since the ruling is reasonably consistent. Districts that attempted enforcement-only approaches — using the expanded legal authority to enforce anti-camping ordinances without parallel shelter investments — generally achieved displacement rather than resolution. Individuals moved from the enforced areas to adjacent blocks, to neighboring municipalities, or to less visible locations within the same district geography. The problem moved; it did not diminish.

Districts that combined outreach-first approaches with enforcement backstop — deploying social services workers to engage individuals in unsheltered situations and offer pathways to shelter or services before initiating enforcement action — report meaningfully different outcomes. Some individuals accept services. Some transition to shelter. The proportion who do is not large — the literature consistently shows that outreach alone resolves a minority of cases — but it is higher than enforcement alone achieves, and the community response to the approach is substantially more positive.

The districts performing best are those that have invested in the specific combination: consistent trained outreach, documented offer of services before enforcement, real shelter capacity to absorb individuals who accept services, and enforcement as the backstop for individuals who decline services and continue to violate ordinances. This combination requires coordination across multiple systems — the district, the city, the shelter providers, the social services agencies — that is difficult to achieve without sustained leadership commitment.

The Federal Context

The Grants Pass ruling changed the constitutional floor, not the policy ceiling. Cities may enforce anti-camping ordinances without Eighth Amendment violation. They are not required to. Many cities have chosen not to accelerate enforcement even after the ruling, either because of state law constraints, local political considerations, or genuine commitment to service-first approaches that they believe are more effective.

Federal funding for sheltering and services — primarily through HUD's Continuum of Care program — remains the primary funding source for the shelter capacity that effective combined approaches require. Changes to that funding program affect the operational capacity of the combined approach even in cities that have fully embraced it. District managers advocating for shelter capacity investments should understand their local Continuum of Care structure and how changes to federal funding flow through that structure to the shelter capacity that their district's approach depends on.

Key Takeaways

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