Episode 57: Unhoused & Queer: SCOTUS to decide if cities can punish people for sleeping outside

05/03/24 • 33 min

In episode 57 of The Activist Files, we’ll hear a discussion around Grants Pass v. Johnson, a case that went before the Supreme Court on April 22, 2024. According to the National Homelessness Law Center, “this case will decide whether cities are allowed to punish people for things like sleeping outside with a pillow or blanket, even when there are no safe shelter options.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights, in our amicus brief, argued that the Supreme Court should rule that ordinances criminalizing homelessness violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. We’re joined by more than forty LGBTQIA+ rights groups who signed on in support of the brief.

Amid a national homelessness crisis driven by a lack of affordable housing, the Court’s ruling in the case City of Grants Pass v. Johnson will have a profound effect on the rights and wellbeing of the hundreds of thousands of people without shelter in the United States. It will have a disproportionate impact on LGBTQIA+ people because they are unhoused at extremely high rates due to discrimination and bias.

Legislators behind the laws have openly stated that their goal is to force unhoused people out of Grants Pass, a city of 40,000 that has no homeless shelters. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sided with the plaintiffs, issuing an injunction blocking enforcement of the ordinances.

We’re joined by Eric Tars Senior, Policy Director at National Homelessness Law Center, and Justin Lance Wilson, Co-founder of Rise Public Strategies.

Speakers:

Mikaila Hernández, Bertha Justice Fellows
Eric Tars, Senior Policy Director - National Homelessness Law Center

Eric Tars serves as the National Homelessness Law Center’s Senior Policy Director, leading the development, oversight, and implementation of the Law Center’s policy advocacy agenda to cultivate a society where every person can live with dignity and enjoy their basic human rights, including the right to affordable, quality, and safe housing. Eric helped spearhead the launch of the Law Center’s national Housing Not Handcuffs campaign, has served as counsel of record in multiple precedent-setting cases, including Martin v. Boise in the 9th Circuit.

Moderator:

Zee Scout, Bertha Justice Fellows

Resources:

We’re joined by Eric Tars Senior, Policy Director at National Homelessness Law Center, and Justin Lance Wilson, Co-founder of Rise Public Strategies.

Speakers:

Mikaila Hernández, Bertha Justice Fellows
Eric Tars, Senior Policy Director - National Homelessness Law Center

Moderator:

Zee Scout, Bertha Justice Fellows

Resources:

Previous Episode

Episode 56: On 10 Years Since Floyd v. NYC: the Ongoing Campaign to End Racist Policing in NYC

In episode 56 of The Activist Files, we’ll hear a discussion sparked by the 10th anniversary of the historic ruling in our stop-and-frisk case, Floyd, et. al v. City of New York.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, together with NYU Review of Law & Social Change, NYU’s Ending the Prison Industrial Complex, and NYU’s National Lawyers Guild Chapter, brought together law students, lawyers, organizers, and impacted community members for a one-day symposium on November 3, 2023. Together, they reflected on lessons learned in the last decade of struggle for police reform and accountability, and imagined a future of abolition and community safety.
What you will hear is the first panel of the day: “10 Years Since Floyd.” The panelists were activist and organizer Joo-Hyun Kang, who formerly headed the coalition Communities United for Police Reform; Floyd plaintiff David Ourlicht; and Floyd counsel Darius Charney, now the Director of the Racial Profiling and Biased Policing Investigations Unit at the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, also known as the CCRB. Our own Advocacy Director, Nadia Ben-Youssef moderated.
Speakers:
Darius Charney, Floyd counsel, current Director of the Racial Profiling and Biased Policing Investigations Unit at the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB)
Joo-Hyun Kang, activist and organizer
David Ourlicht, Floyd plaintiff
Moderator:
Nadia Ben-Youssef, Director of Advocacy

Next Episode

Episode 58: Black August & The ongoing fight to end slavery

Black August began in the 1970s to mark the assassination of incarcerated political prisoners like the revolutionary organizer and writer George Jackson during a prison rebellion in California. Black August honors the freedom fighters, especially those inside the walls of our sprawling prison-industrial complex, who, with their vision, tenacity, and deep love for our communities, are leading us toward the horizon of abolition. The Center for Constitutional Rights is proud to be part of a rich legacy of inside-outside organizing to transform material conditions and build a world of collective safety without prisons, surveillance, and police.

This Black August we bring to you an episode discussing the ongoing inside-outside organizing taking place to put an end to involuntary servitude in prisons or, more appropriately named, prison slavery. We are proud to represent incarcerated workers in Alabama as they seek to abolish forced prison labor, and we will continue to support them until slavery is banned everywhere, once and for all, in all its forms – not just in the law but in practice.

Alabama is one of several states to join the growing movement to abolish prison slavery and involuntary servitude at the state and federal levels. Voters in Colorado, Nebraska, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, and Vermont have approved similar changes to their states' constitutions to remove the loophole permitting slavery as a form of punishment for incarcerated people.

Speakers:
Theeda Murphy - Abolish Slavery National Network, Organizer & Operations Manager
Max Parthas - Abolish Slavery National Network, National Campaign Coordinator & Paul Cuffee Abolitionist Center in Sumter, SC., Acting Director
Claude-Michael Comeau - Promise of Justice Initiative, Staff Attorney

Moderator:
maya finoh, Political Education and Research Manager