SCOTUS ruling on criminalization of the homeless may not impact Atlanta’s unhoused population. The presidential election could do it.

Atlanta’s leading homeless advocate doesn’t believe the expected U.S. Supreme Court ruling on whether municipalities can criminalize homelessness will affect the city’s policies toward its most vulnerable residents – but the results of November’s presidential election almost certainly will.

THE City of Grants Pass v. Johnson This case asks whether a local government can impose civil and criminal penalties on people who camp on public property (such as sleeping with a blanket) – or whether this constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

Cathryn Vassell, executive director of Atlanta homeless services provider Partners For Home, said Wednesday that the city of Atlanta is not trying to criminalize homelessness, as in the case of Grants Pass, in Oregon. Instead, his city agency is working with Mayor Andre Dickens’ administration to ensure Atlanta has places to shelter before uprooting homeless encampments.

The Supreme Court’s ruling won’t change that, Vassell said during a Zoom news conference on the city’s annual homeless numbers. “We have a community and an administration that has been very determined to guarantee housing placements for people when we dismantle an encampment. »

Homelessness in Atlanta increased 7 percent from last year, according to the annual point-in-time count required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). When Partners For Home conducted the count in January, a team of volunteers counted 2,867 people living outdoors or in emergency shelters, up from 2,679 people in 2023.

Like many large cities, Atlanta takes a housing-first approach to getting people off the streets, meaning access to housing does not depend on first obtaining a job or drug treatment . Instead, Partners For Home aims to find safe, stable apartments and homes for unhoused residents, then provide wraparound services, like substance abuse help, health care, or job training, once that people are settled.

“I think that, regardless of what the Supreme Court says, we will continue to maintain that position, and I am confident that the (Dickens) administration will continue to do so as well,” Vassell said.

But she worries about a ripple effect if the Supreme Court rules that local governments can legally fine or jail people living outdoors — especially with growing public pressure to address the country’s homelessness epidemic.

“The danger is that (the decision) could prompt other communities and other administrations to take stronger positions on this issue, given the pressures they feel regarding the homeless and the encampments in their communities, and the pressures from their communities and stakeholders to move the homeless out of sight,” she said.

Impact on the White House

The next presidential administration will have considerable influence over policy and funding for local efforts to reduce homelessness, Vassell said. The Biden administration has followed a housing-focused model, she noted.

Although the previous Trump administration did not cut funding for homeless services, it nonetheless favored a treatment-oriented approach, she explained, in which state-subsidized housing depends on a first treatment for drug addiction or looking for a job. If former President Donald Trump is re-elected, she said, that same approach “could potentially reduce the amount of funding we could seek.”

In fact, HUD funds continuum of care (CoC) programs, such as Partners For Home in Atlanta, for cities across the United States to rehouse people experiencing homelessness.

“If it’s not funding that’s affected (by the election), it certainly could be a policy issue,” Vassell said. “In the annual funding request, HUD sets out its policies for the year … and says, ‘These are our priorities, and you, the local CoCs, need to align with those priorities.’”

The last Trump in the White House installed new leadership at the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, Vassell said, “that really tried to move away from policies focused on housing.”

“They tried to politicize Housing First, tried to indicate that this system was not effective and refuted the evidence that suggests its effectiveness,” she said. The White House Homeless Council under Trump instead began promoting new policies “like in transitional housing, requiring individuals to adopt treatment-first models,” she added, ” which have really not worked well in our system.”

“We still want people to get treatment if they want to,” Vassell emphasized. Partners For Home recognizes that people struggling with alcohol or drugs often need help getting sober, she said, but the agency doesn’t want substance use disorders to prevent people to get housing – especially since having a stable place to live is often an integral part of recovery.