Marin officials gauge effect of major homelessness ruling

Marin municipalities will have more power to clear camps of homeless people as a result of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Friday.

Since 2018, when cities moved to shut down a camp, they were generally expected to offer everyone living there shelter or housing. But few cities had the resources to move all their unhoused residents indoors.

The high court’s 6-3 decision means cities can enforce prohibitions on homeless people sleeping on public property even when shelter beds are not available.

The implications for Marin are of particular interest as officials continue to struggle with regulating camps in San Rafael and Novato.

“The City of San Rafael is optimistic that the recent ruling by the United States Supreme Court will enable the city to have additional options to address homelessness in our community,” San Rafael Mayor Kate Colin said in a statement.

Colin said the city’s focus remains on helping people transition into housing.

“Once city staff and attorneys have reviewed the new federal decision, we will have a better understanding how it can apply to our own ordinances here in San Rafael,” she said.

California has an estimated 181,000 homeless people on a given night, making up almost 30% of the nation’s homeless population. The nine-county Bay Area has roughly 37,000 homeless residents, and about 1,090 of those people reside in Marin County.

The main question in the Supreme Court case was whether broad camping bans aimed at homeless people in Grants Pass, Oregon, a city of 39,000 with about 600 homeless people, amounted to cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.

In the court’s decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that the camping bans could stand, in part because the fines and jail time outlined in the no-camping ordinance are neither cruel nor unusual.

Crucially, the decision also removed the shelter requirement created by the lower 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Earlier this year, the state announced an $18 million grant to help homeless people in Marin move from camps into housing.

The state grants included $5.99 million to resolve the largest municipal camp in Marin County, comprising 65 to 70 people living in the Mahon Creek Path area of San Rafael, and $3.72 million to fund the continuing effort to address a large group of vehicle inhabitants along Binford Road in unincorporated Novato.

San Rafael has been in litigation since August over its camping ordinance that seeks to regulate where camps are allowed and how much space they can occupy.

Lawsuits against the city prevented officials from implementing their laws. In response, city officials designed a new ordinance with looser rules.

Christine Miller, owner of Marin Roofing Co. in San Rafael, applauded the Supreme Court decision.

Miller is among business owners in the middle of the Mahon Creek camp area who say they fear for their safety. Earlier this month, a camp fire spread onto a mattress resting on the fence between the camp and Miller’s business, damaging her property.

“It’s great news for cities, business owners, homeowners and hopefully them,” the homeless residents, Miller said. She said she hopes homeless residents will get the help they need.

In Novato, homeless people began congregating at Binford Road during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. In August 2023, after receiving a $1.6 million Encampment Resolution Fund grant, county staff announced a three-year plan to abate the camp.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. issued a temporary restraining order preventing county officials from seizing one man’s vehicle after he was issued a parking violation notice to tow his vehicle.

The lawsuit is the second lodged by camp residents against the Marin County Sheriff’s Office in the past month.

“While the Supreme Court decision may make more tools available to cities and counties, we are still committed to housing first,” said Supervisor Dennis Rodoni, president of the Marin County Board of Supervisors, who said the county’s program to address homelessness has been working. “Our county team will evaluate the ruling and make policy recommendations to the board in the coming months.”

Homeless advocates, meanwhile, worried the ruling “criminalizes homelessness.”

“Arrest is not the answer,” said Christine Paquette, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin.

Paquette said evidence-based approaches to solve homelessness require long-term sustainable solutions such as outreach, professional case management, mental health supports, housing vouchers and affordable housing stock.

“I’m hopeful that our leaders in Marin County will continue to support evidenced-based best practices, especially with the growing numbers of seniors in Marin who are falling into first-time homelessness,” she said.

Robbie Powelson, an advocate for the homeless who has helped a number of residents in court proceedings, said he’s “enraged” by the ruling.

“It undercuts every American’s right to not be arrested for things outside of our control,” he said. “This precedent sets the stage for a new era of mass incarceration and government impunity that we must boldly resist.”

Jason Sarris, who became an advocate for the Marin homeless community after living on the street himself, said “criminalizing people without a roof over their head will only perpetuate homelessness.”

“Local municipalities cannot arrest their way out of homelessness,” he said. “Incarceration, towing of vehicles, fines, and loss of personal property will only add more barriers for people to get out of homelessness and into a home.”

Sarris said the county, Novato and San Rafael have grant funding to support efforts to help homeless residents get into housing, and he expects officials to honor that effort.

Laura McMahon, executive director of Legal Aid of Marin, says the decision will make the “housing crisis a humanitarian disaster, and its impacts will further harm countless neighbors that deserve our compassion.” Legal Aid is a nonprofit law firm that focuses on tenant eviction defense.

“The court tells our unhoused neighbors that they have no right to exist in public spaces, even when they have no alternative,” McMahon said. “It’s not just cruel — it’s unconstitutional.”

Mary Kay Sweeney, a leader of Homeward Bound of Marin, a nonprofit shelter and supportive housing organization, said the ruling “underscores both how complex homelessness is and how communities across the country are divided in their struggle with how to respond to it.”

“In Marin, we have a collective goal, in partnership with cities, nonprofits, and the county, to end homelessness,” she said. “This Supreme Court decision, we hope, will further galvanize our efforts to create unified solutions, to assure that our vulnerable, unhoused neighbors have a pathway home.”

Jeffrey Selbin, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor who has closely followed the Grants Pass case, said that despite Friday’s ruling, homeless people could still look to the lower courts to halt sweeps. He noted the Grants Pass opinion applies only to Eighth Amendment claims, not the right to due process or federal disability protections.

“If cities think that what was making their lives miserable is over in terms of litigation, that’s just not true,” he said.

The Associated Press and Bay Area News Group reporters Ethan Varian and Cameron Duran contributed to this report.