WASHINGTON — In the six months since the U.S. Supreme Court made it easier for cities to crack down on homelessness, more than a hundred places around the country have banned people from sleeping outside even if they have nowhere else to go.
The spike reflects widespread frustration over record-high rates of homelessness, along with drug use and mental breakdowns in public spaces. But advocates for the unhoused warn that more fines and jail time will only make the problem worse.
The new laws are in rural, urban and suburban towns and cities — both Republican-led and Democratic — and span every region, including in places not known for homelessness, like West Virginia, New Hampshire and Wyoming. Many of the bans are in California, home to about half of the nation’s quarter of a million people who live outside.
“Letting them stay in place is cruel. We want to prompt them to come to a better place,” says Tom Patti, a San Joaquin County supervisor in California’s Central Valley.
He spearheaded an ordinance to make it “uncomfortable” for people to camp outside. It bans sleeping in cars and requires people living outside to move at least 300 feet every hour. Patti says the county’s approach will no longer be reaching out to people for weeks or months to offer blankets and build trust.
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