WASHINGTON – Homeless advocates in Arizona fear that the Supreme Court has increased the risk of violence from police by upholding ordinances criminalizing sleeping in public places.

Phoenix made national headlines for months last year after a Maricopa County judge ordered the clearing of the city's largest homeless encampment, “The Zone,” after downtown businesses complained it posed a safety hazard.

Advocacy groups condemned the order. By November, the camp was cleared and hundreds of people were displaced.

In June, the U.S. Department of Justice released a scathing report on the Phoenix Police Department after a nearly three-year investigation. The report found that Phoenix police routinely violated the rights of homeless people by unlawfully detaining, courting and arresting them and illegally disposing of their belongings.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court upheld an Oregon law, effectively ratifying similar ordinances in Phoenix and other cities that prohibit sleeping outdoors or in camps in public places.

Lawyers in Arizona fear the ruling could have catastrophic consequences.

“Homelessness is a complex problem. Its causes are multifaceted. And so may the policies needed to address it,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority.

Jared Keenan, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, expressed concern about the impact of the ruling on homeless people across the state.

“It's hard to imagine a more drastic example of excessive punishment than punishing, arresting and incarcerating people who sleep outside when they have nowhere else to go. And that's exactly the situation here in Phoenix, where we don't have enough emergency shelters, affordable housing and long-term housing,” Keenan said. “The Supreme Court has given cities the green light to criminalize unhoused living.”

Arizona has long been criticized for its treatment of the homeless. In November 2022, the ACLU of Arizona filed a lawsuit accusing Phoenix of punishing homeless people for sleeping outdoors and destroying their personal property without notice.

“Instead of using criminalization as one of their tools, as city officials claim they need to do, they use it as their primary tool,” Keenan said.

Criminalizing homelessness is “not only cruel, but also counterproductive,” he said. Like other advocates, he pointed to expanding affordable housing and social services as a means of addressing the root causes of homelessness.

“Criminalization does not end anyone's homelessness. The solution to homelessness is to provide people with the housing and supportive services they want and need,” said Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

“We need investment at the federal level to address the affordable housing crisis and shortage that affects not just Arizona but communities across the country,” she said. “Without significant investment, the problem will not go away.”

According to the Arizona Department of Economic Security, the number of people without permanent housing increased by 29% between 2020 and 2023. Over the past five years, the number of homeless people without housing has increased by nearly 73%, according to DES.

More than a third of all arrests in Phoenix from 2016 to 2022 involved homeless people, according to the Justice Department report. Many of these stops, citations and arrests were deemed unconstitutional by the Justice Department.

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On the day of the Supreme Court's decision, the city of Phoenix issued a statement saying it had sought to “deal with the encampments in a dignified and compassionate manner” with the goal of ending homelessness while “preserving the quality of life in our neighborhoods for all residents.”

In addition, “the city will continue to lead the way with leading services and will not criminalize homelessness,” the city’s Office of Homeless Solutions said in a statement.

In December 2022, a federal judge in Arizona ordered Phoenix to stop enforcing camping bans, stop seizing property without notice, and stop destroying property without an opportunity to collect it.

Last October, the court modified the order to conform to a ruling by the liberal U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — which also hears Arizona cases — that affected an ordinance in Grants Pass, Oregon.

The 9th Circuit ruled that it was unconstitutional for cities to target homeless people. Grants Pass had banned the use of cardboard boxes, pillows or blankets when sleeping in public. The Supreme Court overturned that ruling on June 28 in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson.

According to the Justice Department report, Phoenix police repeatedly violated or ignored the 2022 and 2023 court orders and failed to adequately train their officers “to follow the law, nor did they supervise them to ensure they did so.”

While seizures of personal property in “highly visible areas” have improved, raids in other areas have failed to meet constitutional standards, the report said.

In one example, officers arrested seven people who were sitting and sleeping on a public sidewalk and charged them with trespassing. The Justice Department called the arrests illegal.

Despite their requests, the officers left their belongings on the sidewalk.

“Please. All my things are here. Everything. Please,” said a woman, according to the Justice Department, to which the officer replied, “It's all junk. There's nothing there.”

The Justice Department documented numerous cases of police discarding personal items when evicting homeless people. One man lost the urn containing a relative's ashes. Countless others reported the loss of items the Justice Department said were necessary for survival, such as clothing, tents, medicine, and personal identification, including social security cards.

A homeless woman lost her birth certificate when the city threw away her tent, making it “impossible to find shelter,” the report said.

In one case, officers said, “You are scum and this is scum,” while disposing of a homeless man’s personal belongings.

Arizona is one of the fastest-growing states. A lack of affordable housing has exacerbated the homeless crisis and overwhelmed Phoenix's housing capacity, even as the city has invested $140 million in emergency shelters and other homeless services, according to the Justice Department.

“The city tends to view homeless communities as a problem rather than as people. It's much easier to make people disappear through incarceration than to address the homeless crisis,” says Ben Laughlin, policy and research coordinator at Poder in Action, a civil rights organization.

While the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of camp bans, advocates of these measures hope for measures that take a more long-term approach than mere policing.

But Keenan said, “We fear the city will double down on its efforts to criminalize the homeless.”