Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-175_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 34

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

29 

Opinion of the Court 

*4 (CD Cal., May 15, 2020).  By imbuing the availability of
shelter with constitutional significance in this way,  many 
cities tell us, Martin and its progeny have “paralyzed” com-
munities and prevented them from implementing even pol-
icies designed to help the homeless while remaining sensi-
tive to the limits of their resources and the needs of other 
citizens.  Cities  Cert.  Brief  4  (boldface  and  capitalization
deleted).

There  are  more  problems  still.    The  Ninth  Circuit  held 
that  “involuntarily”  homeless  individuals  cannot  be  pun-
ished  for  camping  with  materials  “necessary  to  protect 
themselves from the elements.”  72 F. 4th, at 896.  It sug-
gested,  too,  that  cities  cannot  proscribe  “life-sustaining
act[s]” that flow necessarily from homelessness.  72 F. 4th, 
at 921 (joint statement of Silver and Gould, JJ., regarding 
denial of rehearing).  But how far does that go?  The plain-
tiffs  before  us  suggest  a  blanket  is  all  that  is  required  in 
Grants Pass.  Brief for Respondents 14.  But might a colder
climate trigger a right to permanent tent encampments and
fires for warmth?  Because the contours of this judicial right
are so “uncertai[n],” cities across the West have been left to 
guess whether Martin forbids their officers from removing
everything  from  tents  to  “portable  heaters”  on  city  side-
walks.  Brief for City of Phoenix et al. on Pet. for Cert. 19,
29 (Phoenix Cert. Brief ).  There is uncertainty, as well, over
whether Martin requires cities to tolerate other acts no less 
“attendant  [to]  survival”  than  sleeping,  such  as  starting 
fires  to  cook  food  and  “public  urination  [and]  defecation.” 
Phoenix Cert. Brief 29–30; see also Mahoney v. Sacramento, 
2020  WL  616302,  *3  (ED  Cal.,  Feb.  10,  2020)  (indicating 
that “the [c]ity may not prosecute or otherwise penalize the 
[homeless] for eliminating in public if there is no alterna-
tive to doing so”).  By extending Robinson beyond the nar-
row class of status crimes, the Ninth Circuit has created a 
right  that  has  proven  “impossible”  for  judges  to  delineate 
except “by fiat.”  Powell, 392 U. S., at 534.