The Lawyers’ Committee submitted the amicus brief in the case here.
The following statement is from Thomas Silverstein, Acting Director of the Fair Housing & Community Development Project.
“The Court’s conclusion that sleeping outside when there is a shortage of shelter beds can be criminalized defies logic and is an affront to the basic rights of hundreds of thousands of Americans. This ruling will hit Black and Brown people especially hard. This decision allows local governments to arrest people for having nowhere to live, but localities have a choice and should do the right thing instead. Communities across the country should invest in affordable housing and connect people experiencing homelessness to that housing as well as to supportive services. Adopting the counterproductive policies blessed by the Court will do more harm than good.”
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About the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law–The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to mobilize the nation’s leading lawyers as agents for change in the Civil Rights Movement. Today, the Lawyers’ Committee uses legal advocacy to achieve racial justice, fighting inside and outside the courts to ensure that Black people and other people of color have the voice, opportunity, and power to make the promises of our democracy real.
