As you probably know, America is in the midst of a homeless crisis. The number of homeless, to the extent it can be counted, recently reached the highest on record numbering more than 650,000. The impact is felt in big cities and even some smaller towns. One of them Grants Pass, Oregon where a landmark court case exposed a fierce divide over how to handle homelessness.

The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.

Like any homeless camp in America.

Cassy Leach: So this is the J Street encampment

there are as many different stories as there are people to tell them.

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Janene Buck: I lost my job due to my depression and to the point to where I couldn’t even do my job anymore.

Sharyl: And for all of you, where’s your next meal gonna come from?

Homeless citizen: Probably the food that comes here about two o’clock.

This camp is in Grants Pass, Oregon, a four-hour drive south of Portland. And an unlikely centerpoint in a tug-of-war between the rights of the homeless versus the rights of residents who want them cleared from public areas.

Ed Johnson represents the homeless, as a lawyer for the nonprofit Oregon Law Center.

Sharyl: How did this become a case that was litigated in court?

Ed Johnson: So we started to hear from people back in 2017 that they were being approached by law enforcement and told ‘there’s nowhere you’re allowed to be in town.’ And the fines were $295 a pop which, not surprisingly if you’re living outside, might as well be a million dollars. And so we ended up representing a group of people who had been living in Grants Pass for years, who had faced these criminal penalties for living outside.

The lawsuit on behalf of the homeless was filed in 2018. Initially, the court ruled it was “cruel and unusual punishment” for Grants Pass to arrest or ticket people sleeping outside if they had nowhere else to go.

Sara Bristol: So we’re basically, you know, a community at war within itself over this issue.

Sara Bristol was mayor of Grants Pass as the controversy and homeless population grew.

Sharyl: And did you say at one point there were homeless people sleeping in 15 parks?

Bristol: Yeah, we had people in all of our city parks. And those parks are all in residential neighborhoods. They’re near schools. And so, you know, that just wasn’t an ideal place for people to be.

Grants Pass was forced to let the homeless live in the parks for years while it challenged the lawsuit. Drugs, needles, and other safety issues chased residents out.

Clint Scherf is a local businessman.

Sharyl: You think the lawsuit to some degree, or maybe totally, caused a crisis here because it advertised that Grants Pass now was letting people sleep in the park?

Scherf: My personal opinion is that yes, that is the root of the explosion of the homeless population. So that on top of having a beautiful park to live in, I believe, my personal opinion is that that put a big neon sign outside on I-5 to our first two exits.

Then last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Grants Pass.

Johnson: The issue was whether or not local governments can punish people for living outside when they have nowhere else to live. And specifically whether the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eighth Amendment prohibited cities from doing that. And the Supreme Court held six to three, that the cruel and unusual punishment clause does not prevent cities from doing that.

Bristol: The Supreme Court decision allowed us, allowed the injunction to be removed and so we were able to move homeless people out of our parks.

Sharyl (on-camera): The lawsuit outcome here in Grants Pass has offered the beginnings of a blueprint to other communities across the country as to how they’ll be allowed to handle their own homeless crises.

But Bristol, then the mayor, says that just opened a new divide over what to do next. She wanted the city to establish new “low barrier” shelters that allow pets— as well as people who are drinking or using drugs.

Bristol: I do feel strongly that we need to have places where people can be. And unfortunately we still don’t have a low barrier homeless shelter. And so, and that’s just part of this community trying to come to terms with how to handle this situation.

Other residents want no part of paying for new shelters. And in the first election after the Supreme Court decision last fall, there was a major change over in the Grants Pass City Council.

Bristol: The implications were a new city council, you know, that we had four city councilers and myself, out of office earlier.

Sharyl: Do you think all of you all were voted out largely over this issue?

Bristol: Two of the councilors didn’t run again, and then two were running for reelection as well as myself. And yeah, I’m sure it had absolutely everything to do with this issue.

In the upheaval, Clint Scherf was elected as the new mayor of Grants Pass. He was sworn in just before our visit. He says it’s enough that there’s already a religious-run shelter in town— with plenty of open beds.

Scherf: So we have the Gospel Rescue mission that services men and women, mainly men, that is 75% empty, empty, not full, empty. And it’s because it does have higher barriers, meaning that you can’t smoke, you can’t do drugs on the premises, meaning that they don’t wanna change their ways, they don’t want to change their activities, they don’t want to change their nature.

Sharyl: So is it accurate to say the city has the green light to move homeless people out of the parks, but there’s not really a solution yet as to what to do with them?

Scherf: Correct. Basically it says that the city will have to come up with objectable and reasonable accommodations for them or, basic or something, and not just kick them out.

Sharyl: So you still have to take care of them?

Scherf: No, it doesn’t state that you have to take care of them. It says states that you have to basically be reasonably objective in how you relocate them. And what that means to me, as local government leaders, we need to try to work with all the community resources that we possibly can, which in our case will be the churches, will be the non-profits, anybody that wants to help.

Sharyl: The Mission— Why not go there?

Buck: Because I have two dogs that I refuse to get rid of. They are pretty much my service animals. I will not get rid of them at all.

Darrell Colwell: I’ve been homeless now about four and a half years, off and on. I’ve had places to stay, but I just, you know, I don’t really be locked up. And like the one in Medford, they lock you down at nighttime. They may close the gates, they lock ’em, they may have you on curfews and everything else. And I just didn’t feel like I wanted to be there.

At its first meeting, the new City Council quickly took on the issue of whether to close the two relocation camps in Grants Pass.

Resident: Where are they supposed to go? They aren’t there because of the weather being good. They’re there because they have nowhere else to go. It is not just drug use and mental illness, it is poverty. Poverty should not be a crime in this community.

Resident: The majority of the people that are unhoused in Grants Pass aren’t homeless, they’re just aren’t allowed home because of their addiction to drugs.

The council voted to close one of the two relocation sites— and limit hours at the second.

Cassy Leach is a homeless advocate.

Leach: The hours there are gonna be 5:00 PM to 7:00 AM and then that’s how I understand it now.

Sharyl: Well, you’ll have to move their tents in the day then?

Cassy: Correct.

Sharyl: So what happens then, do you think? What, what is your best guess is what’s gonna happen?

Leach: And that’s the big question, and that’s kind of what the community’s asking city council is what’s next? Where are they gonna go during the day and how is it gonna impact our community and businesses?

For now, the public parks in Grants Pass are safe and clean again and free of the homeless encampments. But far from being an end to the problem, it’s only the next chapter in a complex dilemma faced by communities around the country.

Sharyl (on-camera): For more on this story, you can listen to my podcast Full Measure After Hours.

Watch video here.