Arresting and ticketing people for sleeping outdoors, even when no shelter is available, is not unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 28.
In doing so, the court’s conservative majority overturned previous decisions maintaining that Martin v. Boise, a case that removed such criminal penalties for acts of homelessness in the absence of shelter and protected unhoused people’s constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment.
So does that mean the arguments made by the Coalition on Homelessness and seven unhoused plaintiffs in their lawsuit against the City and County of San Francisco are gone, and the case is basically over? And since a federal district judge lifted part of the preliminary injunction, can the City continue the removal of unsheltered folks’ property?
Not necessarily, according to their lawyers. In a joint statement, the American Civil Liberties Union-Northern California and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights in the Bay Area announced that the lawsuit against the City will proceed.
While the lawyers cited Martin v. Boise as a basis for the lawsuit, it’s only one of 13 claims in their case. Several others remain, including other constitutional claims as well as state and federal laws. The trial is scheduled for May 2025.
Plaintiffs accuse the City of violating both the U.S. and California constitutions. Legal experts agree that while both constitutions are similar, the state charter is broader in scope. It also informs a human rights focus on the same rights already outlined in the U.S Constitution, and that could be a key to the advocates winning the case.
The plaintiffs’ also allege that the City discriminates against people with disabilities, and that its agencies deprive unhoused San Franciscans of their constitutional rights. The following summarizes the lawyers’ claims and the grounds on which they’re based.
Cruel and unusual punishment. The Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment, was at the core of the Martin and Grants Pass cases, which the Coalition’s lawyers cited in the lawsuit. The attorneys argue that the lack of available shelter compels unhoused people to violate several laws just to survive, and that the City’s enforcement places those who perform simple survival acts of sleeping and lying in public at risk of breaking the law. According to the lawsuit, they are essentially punished for being homeless, which violates the Eighth Amendment.
However, the California Constitution goes further than the U.S. Constitution: It protects people against cruel or unusual punishment. Here’s where its focus on human rights comes into play: The lawsuit says that by punishing people for homelessness-related acts, the City is not “treat[ing] its [residents] with respect for their intrinsic worth as human beings” without probable cause.
Unreasonable search and seizure. The City is violating unhoused people’s Fourth Amendment rights—which protect against unreasonable search and seizure—without probable cause, according to the lawsuit. Because people lack housing and shelter, they are continually stopped, searched, seized, investigated, arrested and “moved along” based on anti-lodging laws and public sleeping bans, the suit argues.
This claim also cites a 2011 case against the city of Los Angeles, where the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an unhoused person’s property is protected under the Fourth and 14th amendments.
California’s equivalent to the Fourth Amendment—Article I, Section 13—offers more expansive protections. Attorneys referenced a 1985 case where a court found that section has “independent and more exacting standards” than the U.S. Constitution. They maintained that enforcing anti-sleeping laws also violated this section of the California Constitution.
Property destruction. Under both the federal Fourth Amendment and California’s Article I, Section 13, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said that City workers’ destroying belongings in encampment sweeps pose a “persistent and imminent threat” to unhoused residents. San Francisco Public Works staff at encampment operations also ignore their department’s written policy when they don’t “bag and tag” property for residents to retrieve within 90 days, they argue.
This department policy applies except in cases for abandoned property, perishables, trash or items posing a public health or safety risk, or evidence of a crime. But workers make no distinction of which property is worth saving and dispose of them wholesale, according to the lawsuit.
Due Process/exposure to a state-created danger. “The fundamentals of due process are notice and an opportunity to be heard prior to a deprivation of property,” plaintiffs’ lawyers wrote in the filing. They argue that people aren’t given warning when their belongings are removed and have no opportunity to contest the seizure. This violates federal and state protections under the 14th Amendment and Article I, Section 7(a), respectively. Furthermore, the City endangers residents’ physical and mental health by taking away their survival gear used to protect and shelter from the elements, plaintiffs’ lawyers argue.
Conspiracy to deprive rights. The law cited in this claim has quite a history attached to it. In 1871, Congress enacted U.S. Code, Section 1983 as a response to Ku Klux Klan activity in Reconstruction-era southern states. Black people were given the right to sue government officials who violate their rights “under color of state law.” Also, the plaintiffs who challenged school segregation in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which integrated public schools nationwide, invoked this particular section.
According to the lawsuit, the identified City agencies in this case acted “with one another to target unhoused people for enforcement and property destruction in violation of their constitutional rights.”
Discrimination against people with disabilities. This allegation is specific to unhoused plaintiff Teresa Sandoval. In the lawsuit, lawyers said that City workers disposed of Sandoval’s prosthetic limbs during a sweep. In that incident, workers violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and a similar California code by failing to provide adequate time, notice and assistance before clearing her camp, as well as meeting her specific needs by identifying appropriate shelter that meets them. Of San Francisco’s homeless population, 39% report a disabling condition, according to the City’s most recent point-in-time count in 2022.
Laura Riley, the clinical director at Berkeley Law said that this is something that cities should address.
“I think understanding how people with disabilities need different or potentially more notice when they are going to take property, or move people, or assess what shelter is appropriate for them and housing needs, is important,” she said.
