Ending Homelessness Just Got Harder

And so our coalition must get stronger

I normally don’t like to do two posts in the same week—much less in the same day—but this is important.

The Supreme Court ruled today that communities can arrest, ticket, fine, and otherwise criminalize people for sleeping outside, camping, and even having a blanket outside when it’s cold. There are no requirements anymore for there to be enough resources or shelter beds before local governments brazenly punish people for the crime of being poor.

It’s enraging. It’s going to kill people. It’s going to make it harder for people to end their homelessness, and for workers and advocates to help.

For more context, I’ve written on this twice:

Do Unhoused People Have Constitutional Rights?

Faith Leaders Defend the Rights of the Unhoused

So where do we go from here? Well, here’s the good news: the Supreme Court can make things better or worse, but they can’t end homelessness and they can’t stop us from doing it either. We can be resilient and we can be together.

This ruling also doesn’t automatically make it a crime to be homeless across the country. It means that communities are allowed to criminalize it. In our communities, we can stop that from happening by not voting for it, and not voting for people who intend to enact such laws. (And of course, all the organizing that precedes and comes after voting.)

And frankly, we can be angry. Today is a day for rage, disappointment, grief, and so much else.

But let's not be tempted to fall into the dual traps of despair or overburdening ourselves individually.

Despair leads to hopelessness, and we can't lose hope—it's the last thing we'll have.

But I'm far more worried—because I feel this rising up in myself—that we'll respond to this news feeling like we need to *do more*, but interpret that individually. Yes, more needs to be done, but we'll only do it by spreading the work out to more people. We need to get organized, not busy.

this is what getting organized looks like

The same urge to be a savior in this work, an urge I’ve struggled with and had to learn to constantly squash, leads me to believe after this ruling that I need to take more on my plate, fight harder, and BE more. Maybe you’re feeling that too.

Instead, consider joining me in squashing the urge to be more and to do more, and let's link arms instead. Let’s find more people to join the work, who are willing to listen to best practices from people who are or have experienced homelessness.

Let’s become unstoppable.

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