Illegal to be unhoused: The U.S. Supreme Court determined local governments can enforce anti-camping laws—and local advocates are concerned

On a July afternoon, Jerry Allen Goode II sat on an overturned white bucket perched on a concrete median. In the 100-degree-plus heat, he held a sign by his feet that read, “Anything helps.” Drivers leaned out of their car windows to hand him water bottles or folded dollar bills. 

During slow traffic, Goode balanced a notepad on his knee and drew designs, including hearts and flames. After some time passed, he gave up the space to another man and returned to a shaded resting spot. 

Goode, originally from North Carolina, traveled to Northern Nevada six years ago with his ex-wife to reunite with their daughter in Silver Springs and “get their lives straightened out.” 

“Long story short, that didn’t really happen,” he said. 

He said his ex-wife stopped using substances and regained custody of their daughter, but recovery has been difficult for him, and he has tried multiple programs to help him with his substance-abuse disorder. One wouldn’t allow him to see his daughter every day like he wanted. The other needed him to commit to the program constantly—but he couldn’t afford the program without income, and couldn’t dedicate the necessary time if he was working. 

“I wasn’t ready,” Goode said. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong or anything.” 

Goode was eventually kicked out of his house and left with no support system, family or home. He said he was living in his car, but recently lost it when law enforcement told him to move. It didn’t have updated registration and was taken away. 

“Pretty bad luck for sure,” Goode said. 

Goode is one of more than 650,000 people in the United States, as reported by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), living without stable shelter—who could now be subject to civil punishment for violating local anti-camping laws after the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 28 decision in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson. The ruling gave local governments the power to enforce anti-camping laws regardless of available shelter space. 

Some advocates and legal experts have called the ruling “inhumane” and “ineffective.” Government officials have praised the ruling for clarifying the law and allowing local governments to address homelessness in a way that best fits their communities. 

Government reactions 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling is expected to have less weight in Reno than in larger cities, said Brian Sooudi, the city of Reno’s chief deputy city attorney for the Criminal Division.  

“The only thing that’s really changed is the law enforcement officers don’t need to check for shelter space,” Sooudi said. “They can just enforce, regardless if the shelter’s at max capacity or not.” 

Washoe County operates the Cares Campus, the largest shelter in Northern Nevada. According to county shelter data, the region’s shelters are more likely to be at capacity in the winter, but they rarely reach full capacity. In the first two weeks of July, there were between 13 and 26 beds available (out of a total of approximately 700) on a given night. 

Sooudi said that because the Reno-Sparks region typically has shelter space, the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson decision may not change how local police enforce anti-camping laws. But for larger cities with less shelter space per capita, such as San Francisco or Los Angeles, the ruling could have a more significant impact. 

“In Reno, we’ve been a little bit more fortunate,” Sooudi said. 

An estimated 1,760 people live in Washoe County without stable shelter—a record-breaking number, according to the county’s latest Point in Time count, the annual survey of people living unhoused, usually conducted in January. 

The federal decision comes at a time when Northern Nevada jurisdictions are adopting stricter laws regarding where people can live and sleep. In March, the Washoe County Commission passed a law that prohibited camping or living in a vehicle on county-owned properties or public places. 

The ordinance also made it a misdemeanor to camp within 1,000 feet of the Truckee River, park oversized vehicles on public property, obstruct public sidewalks or roads, use open flame devices on county or public property, and solicit 15 feet from a road or highway. Commissioners who voted in favor of the ordinance said they were giving law enforcement staff the tools that they said they needed to do their job. Commissioner Chair Alexis Hill told the RN&R in April that the commission plans to revisit the ordinance in a year to see if it is still useful for county staff. 

“If you put them in jail and you do all that, what have you done to change this person’s life so that they don’t re-offend? Zero, nothing.”  Christopher Hazlett-Stevens, community court judge

The city of Sparks passed similar bans in 2023 that make it a criminal misdemeanor to sleep on a sidewalk or in a vehicle on public property. 

Sparks City Attorney Wes Duncan, in a June 28 Twitter/X post, called the City of Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling “a big victory for cities like Sparks that seek to strike the right balance between enforcing the law to protect public health/safety and connecting the homeless to needed services.” However, some government officials, legal experts and housing-advocacy groups said it is too early to tell how the ruling will affect Northern Nevada’s unhoused population and the enforcement of anti-camping laws. 

The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office declined a request for an interview about how law enforcement practices might change. As of mid-April, Hill said no arrests had been made. A public-records request to learn how many people had been arrested had not been answered by the county as of our press deadline. 

Sooudi said people in Reno who are service-resistant and living outside are typically sent to community court. The court happens every week at the Downtown Reno Library and connects those in need with services such as housing assistance, substance-recovery programs or help recovering lost identification or documents. 

Judge Christopher Hazlett-Stevens said that although people may decline the help offered at community court several times before they accept it, community court is a better solution than detaining them. 

“If you put them in jail and you do all that, what have you done to change this person’s life so that they don’t re-offend? Zero, nothing,” said Hazlett-Stevens, who worked as a criminal-defense attorney for the city before becoming a judge for community court. 

A legal advocate questions the laws’ fairness 

Government and law enforcement representatives often say they want to drive people to services like community court with the stricter camping laws. But Jennifer Richards, the directing attorney for the Senior Law Center and Medical Legal Partnership with Northern Nevada Legal Aid, a nonprofit legal service that serves Reno and Northern Nevada’s rural areas, said laws prohibiting acts of public indecency, littering and public alcohol consumption already existed. The recent ruling prohibits sleeping—something everyone needs to do—in public areas. 

“You’re outlawing the biological need for sleep,” Richards said.  

She said she’s reminded of this every time she glances out her window at work, which overlooks a shaded grassy patch that people without shelter typically use to escape the summer heat. 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled local governments could prohibit all forms of camping on public property. This would include people staying in their car overnight when they can’t find a hotel, or university students camping on campus, as is common during protests. But Richards said it would likely affect the unhoused population more than travelers or students. 

Richards said the ruling could affect Northern Nevada Legal Aid’s workload—which already has the small team spread thin—as people go to the group for assistance to stay housed. 

The everyday math of housing instability 

The ruling also comes at a time when housing prices continue to outpace what is affordable to Nevadans earning the state’s median income, let alone minimum wage. 

The Department of Housing and Urban Development considers housing to be affordable if a household spends 30% or less of its income on rent. 

In February 2024, the average monthly price to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Reno was $1,402, according to the Nevada State Apartment Association. The median monthly income per person in Reno is $3,604, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This means if a person lives alone or is the sole breadwinner in their household, they’d typically spend 39% of their income on rent for a one-bedroom apartment. 

For minimum-wage workers, the squeeze is even tighter. A Renoite working a 40-hour job for minimum wage—which increased to $12, effective July 1—and renting a one-bedroom apartment at the median price would spend about 70% of their earnings on housing. 

According to a study from the U.S. Government Accountability Office that three Supreme Court justices cited in their dissent, a “$100 increase in median rental price” is “associated with about a 9% increase in the estimated homelessness rate.” 

Since 2019, the cost of a one-bedroom apartment in Reno has risen by nearly $500. 

Tenant protection bills failed 

Ben Iness, the coalition coordinator for the Nevada Housing Justice Alliance, a housing-justice advocacy group, is watching the effects of rising housing costs play out in his neighborhood.  

“My neighbor said goodbye to me the other day, and he says, ‘Well, it’s time I have to live in my car, and I should be OK. I can shower at the gym, or go to the casinos,’” Iness said. “I didn’t even know what to say to my neighbor. I’m like, ‘Well, you know, that’s illegal … punishable.’”

Iness said the solutions governments are bringing up are “ineffective” and “misguided.” The Nevada Housing Justice Alliance supported bills during the 2023 legislative session to help keep people sheltered before they lost their housing. These housing bills gained significant attention from lawmakers and advocates partly because several COVID-era housing-assistance programs were expiring. These bills would have extended that assistance and revised Nevada’s summary eviction process. Other bills presented during the 2023 session would have prevented housing and income discrimination by requiring landlords to accept housing vouchers and limiting background checks on tenants. However, most of the housing bills were vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo, or they died before they made it to his desk.  

Business as usual 

Athar Haseebullah, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said no one so far has told him there have been increased sweeps of camps, but the ACLU is keeping an eye on the situation. 

Haseebullah said even if nothing changes, he does not support the ways in which local governments have handled the problem of more people becoming unhoused. 

“They’ve already had a million and one laws that they could use that are on the books to be able to prosecute folks, and they’ve taken advantage of some of them, and they haven’t pursued other ones,” Haseebullah said. “Their response is that we have to do, quote-unquote, ‘something.’ We think doing, quote-unquote, ‘something’ is a terrible idea if it’s ineffective, inefficient and inhumane.” 

Jerry Allen Goode II said he feels torn about the ruling. He said he believes people should “use their head” when sleeping outside by only staying in one place for a few days, not making a mess and not being a nuisance, but he’s afraid the law may be going too far. 

“Because I was recently told that I couldn’t sleep in my car, well, that to me, really, isn’t much further from telling me where I have to live,” Goode said. 

His car wasn’t on private property, and there were no signs saying he couldn’t park overnight, Goode said. But according to the aforementioned ordinance passed by Washoe County, it is illegal to sleep in a vehicle. And since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, even if the shelter had been at capacity, Goode still could have been told to move. 

“Today you’re telling us we can’t sleep right here; tomorrow they’re locking us up, because we don’t have anywhere to stay,” Goode said. “And that’s not OK. Because it’s not illegal to be homeless or not have a place to sleep. I just feel like we need to be careful where we allow them to take these laws—because if you lose one freedom, you lose them all.”