Solis said the ruling would be "implemented unevenly" by all of the small cities within L.A. County, putting a strain on those that "have stepped up and added shelter beds" to tackle the problem while emboldening those that haven't made such investments to further "shirk their responsibilities and push their unhoused residents across their borders."

Shaun Donovan, former Housing and Urban Development secretary under the Obama administration and now president and chief executive of a national housing nonprofit, said he's bracing for a decision that will further exacerbate what is "already the worst homelessness crisis that we've seen in the history of the country."

"When you fine the very poorest, most vulnerable people in our society, when you jail them, you are actually compounding and perpetuating the underlying problems that can lead to homelessness," he said.

Enabling strict camping bans, Donovan warned, will have "potentially disastrous consequences for cities that are working tirelessly to end homelessness and move people into housing."

The Grants Pass case has produced strange bedfellows between mainstream liberal leaders in California and conservatives who are hopeful it will usher in a new age of progress, but progressives and other observers such as Horvath and Donovan fear the same California cities that threw their support behind Grants Pass are about to see that decision backfire.

Shifting the problem?

The Grants Pass case began when local homeless people challenged as unconstitutional a pair of city ordinances against sleeping and camping in public parks.

Debra Blake, a then-60-year-old homeless plaintiff who died during the litigation, wrote in a 2019 court declaration that she knew hundreds of people who slept outdoors in Grants Pass, about 40 miles north of the California border on the 5 Freeway.

"They have all had similar experiences with the Grants Pass police awaking them, moving them along, ticketing them, fining them, arresting them and/or criminally prosecuting them for living outside," Blake wrote.

The case wound up before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and a three-judge panel ruled in September 2022 that the Constitution's limit on "cruel and unusual punishment" bars criminal penalties for "involuntarily" homeless people using "rudimentary forms of protection from the elements" while sleeping in public spaces.

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