The Boise decision has had a huge impact on the entire west coast of the US. This 2018 ruling from the 9th Circuit said that not only could states not criminalize homelessness, they could not criminalize the results of homelessness. That meant you couldn’t arrest someone for sleeping in a tent on the sidewalk or in a public park.
Cities impacted by this decision have been trying to overturn it since it was issued but the way this has worked out in practice is that cities cannot remove a homeless person unless they have a shelter bed to offer them. And even that becomes tricky because most cities have more homeless people than beds precisely because many of the homeless routinely refuse offers of shelter. So even when there are many more homeless people than beds, many of the beds are empty on any given night.
And this is where a legal question arises. If a homeless person…
