Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 32

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

27 

Opinion of the Court 

do federal judges enjoy any special competence to provide 
them.  Cities across the West report that the Ninth Circuit’s
ill-defined  involuntariness  test  has  proven  “unworkable.”
Oregon Cities Brief 3; see Phoenix Brief 11.  The test, they
say, has left them “with little or no direction as to the scope
of  their  authority  in  th[eir]  day-to-day  policing  contacts,”
California Sheriffs Brief 6, and under “threat of federal lit-
igation  . . .  at  all  times  and  in  all  circumstances,”  Oregon
Cities Brief 6–7. 

To be sure, Martin attempted to head off these complexi-
ties  through  some  back-of-the-envelope  arithmetic.    The 
Ninth Circuit said a city needs to consider individuals “in-
voluntarily” homeless (and thus entitled to camp on public 
property)  only  when  the  overall  homeless  population  ex-
ceeds the total number of “adequate” and “practically avail-
able” shelter beds.  See 920 F. 3d, at 617–618, and n. 8.  But 
as sometimes happens with abstract rules created by those 
far from the front lines, that test has proven all but impos-
sible to administer in practice.

City  officials  report  that  it  can  be  “monumentally  diffi-
cult” to keep an accurate accounting of those experiencing
homelessness on any given day.  Los Angeles Cert. Brief 14. 
Often,  a  city’s  homeless  population  “fluctuate[s]  dramati-
cally,”  in  part  because  homelessness  is  an  inherently  dy-
namic status.  Brief for City of San Clemente as Amicus Cu-
riae 16 (San Clemente Brief ).  While cities sometimes make 
rough estimates based on a single point-in-time count, they
say it would be “impossibly expensive and difficult” to un-
dertake that effort with any regularity.  Id., at 17.  In Los 
Angeles, for example, it takes three days to count the home-
less population block-by-block—even with the participation 
of  thousands  of  volunteers.    Martin,  920  F. 3d,  at  595 
(Smith, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc). 

Beyond  these  complexities,  more  await.    Suppose  even
large cities could keep a running tally of their homeless cit-
izens  forevermore.  And  suppose  further  that  they  could