Cities often pass ordinances that discourage homelessness by criminalizing activities such as panhandling and sleeping outside. Recently, the City of Palo Alto, California even passed an ordinance that will make it a crime to sleep in a car. Punishments for using a car as a “dwelling place” could include a $1,000 fine, a year in jail, or both.
This ordinance in Palo Alto seems unjustifiably harsh. How could it possibly be a crime to sleep in your own car? The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is currently in the process of deciding whether a similar law in Los Angeles violates the Constitution. Constitutional challenges to these types of ordinances include:
- The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of the cruel and unusual punishment
- The Constitutional right to travel from the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges and Immunities Clause
Cruel and Unusual Punishment
The protection from cruel and unusual punishment has been applied to similar cases to protect the homeless. For example, Los Angeles previously passed a law prohibiting sleeping, lying, and sitting on sidewalks. The ACLU brought an action against the city for arresting homeless people from sleeping on the streets. The Court of Appeals determined that the law was unconstitutional because those arrested were involuntarily homeless and had no other choice than to sleep on the streets.
The Right to Travel
The other primary constitutional challenge to sleeping ordinances is the constitutional right to travel. If an ordinance criminalizes sleeping on streets or in cars, then the homeless are forced to either move on or risk being cited or arrested. Since sleeping is a vital necessity, this discourages migration and puts a burden on the person’s right to travel.