Supreme Court Endorses Cities’ Power to Deter Homeless Camps (1)

The US Supreme Court reinstated an Oregon city’s law banning public camping in its first ruling on homelessness in four decades.

The justices said Friday the ban by Grants Pass doesn’t violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment even if applied against individuals who are involuntarily homeless.

The opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch split the court along ideological lines.

“Homelessness is complex. Its causes are many,” Gorsuch wrote. But the Eighth Amendment doesn’t give “federal judges primary responsibility for assessing those causes and devising those responses.”

The ruling undoes a victory for homeless people at the US ...