PORTLAND, Ore. — The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in the Johnson v. Grants Pass case Friday morning, ruling that the city can enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside when there is no shelter available. It's the most significant case before the high court in decades on the issue.

The court ruled 6-3, with the conservative majority siding with Grants Pass. Three liberal judges dissented. The majority of justices said that laws regulating camping on public property do not violate the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The case started when the city of Grants Pass in southern Oregon began fining people $295 for sleeping outside as the cost of housing escalated and tents sprung up in the city’s public parks. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law under its holding that banning camping in places without enough shelter beds amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

Grants Pass appealed to the Supreme Court, asking them to overturn that decision. On April 22, the Supreme Court heard arguments and justices appeared to be leaning toward a narrow ruling in the case. The court sided with the city on Friday, reversing the Ninth Circuit opinion.

"Right now this whole community, the homeless community, is in fear right now that they're going to start being arrested and going to jail," said Helen Cruz, who used to be homeless in Grants Pass.

The city argued that the lower court ruling hamstrung their ability to clear encampments and manage a growing crisis. One of the attorneys representing Grants Pass, Aaron Hisel, said Friday's ruling would empower local leaders to make decisions.

"They're going to know what they can and can't do with their resources instead of being forced to spend it on shelter space that may not go utilized," he said.

Friday's ruling is expected to have wide-ranging impacts around the country. It doesn't require cities to take stronger action against homeless people, but it could alter how they police homelessness. In Oregon, people may not see an immediate change on the streets. Oregon has a state law, House Bill 3115, that says local government can enact time, place and manner restrictions for sleeping on public property, as long as they are "objectively reasonable", taking into account available shelter. 

Ed Johnson with the Oregon Law Center, lead council for the homeless plaintiffs in the case, said there's another important issue that still needs to be addressed. 

"We don't have enough housing, and lawyers and judges are not going to fix that problem. The police are not going to fix that problem," he said.

Johnson v. Grants Pass: How we got here

The case originated with a group of homeless people who filed a class action lawsuit against the city of Grants Pass over its web of ordinances. Anyone caught sleeping on the sidewalks, streets or city parks would face a fine of $295, and those fines could go up to $1,200 and 30 days in jail for repeat offenses.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the homeless people, referring to the court's previous ruling in 2018 in another case, Martin v. Boise. They determined in that case that people who are involuntarily homeless can't be punished just for sleeping outside if they have nowhere else to go.

At the time, Grants Pass had virtually no adult shelters, only a transitional housing program run by a religious organization. 

The attorneys for the homeless plaintiffs argued that Grants Pass wasn't simply trying to enforce some basic rules to prevent the build-up of homeless camps, but that they were trying to make it too uncomfortable for homeless people to exist in the city at all.

The city of Grants Pass, on the other hand, pointed to the overall rise in homelessness across the West Coast and attributed it to the Ninth Circuit rulings that became a reason why police can't arrest or cite homeless people in the western U.S. if they are committing no other crimes.

The San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit appeals court has jurisdiction over nine states in the West. 

More than 650,000 people are estimated to be homeless, the most since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007. Nearly half of them sleep outside. Older adults, LGBTQ+ people and people of color are disproportionately affected, advocates said.