When Kalispell City Attorney Johnna Preble was contacted by phone Monday she was tuned into the first day of oral arguments in a U.S. Supreme Court case.
The nation’s highest court is hearing a case out of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that it is unconstitutional to penalize people with civil citations for sleeping outside when there are an inadequate number of shelter beds available.
The National Homelessness Law Center called it the "most significant case about homelessness in 40+ years."
That case, which came from Grants Pass, Oregon, was an expansion on an earlier ruling also from the 9th Circuit: Martin V. Boise, which ruled that hitting people with criminal penalties for sleeping outside when there was not alternative shelter space available was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment's clause on cruel and unusual punishment. Key to this ruling is that the court also found that the plaintiffs were involuntarily homeless, meaning they had no choice but to be on the street.
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The U.S. Supreme Court decision will impact every city and town in the nation, but it will have a particular impact on states within the 9th Circuit — which Montana is a part of — because these states have been passing laws with the Grants Pass ruling in mind, Preble explained.
"This case will impact all cities no matter how it comes down," said Amy Hall, an attorney who specializes in Montana's housing laws.
While the Supreme Court case is confined to the Grants Pass decision, it "will have obvious impacts on Martin" depending on how the court rules, explained Alex Rate, interim deputy director for ACLU Montana.
"If SCOTUS overrules Grants Pass it will embolden communities like Boise to pass inhumane ordinances that criminalize being unhoused," Rate said in a text message.
Martin and Grants Pass are brought up often in Montana, especially as an increasing number of cities grapple with ballooning homeless populations. Multiple cities and towns in the state currently have ordinances related to homelessness or "urban camping."
The city of Bozeman started removing homeless people from parks and recreation areas once the Warming Center expanded its capacity to 365 days a year. With a year-round shelter in town, the city was given authority to force homeless people out of these spaces under the Martin ruling.
“As long as there’s a shelter space, we can remove them from the park,” Bozeman Police Capt. Joseph Swanson told the Montana Free Press in 2022.
Nearby Manhattan recently passed a similar but stricter ordinance that prohibits camping on a public road for more than three days. That ordinance cited both the Grants Pass and Martin cases.
In early 2023 the city of Kalispell — the town where a homeless man was beaten to death last year — passed three ordinances in response to the ongoing encampment of homeless people in downtown Kalispell. The ordinances regulate people's occupancy in a covered structure, regulate personal items in public places and outlaw personal structures in parks.
"They are constitutional and they were put into effect after Grants Pass with Grants Pass in mind," said Preble, the city attorney.
Now, Preble said, the city is "actively keeping an eye on [the Supreme Court case]."
Across the state in Missoula, urban camping and encampment sweeps have been dominating the conversation over the last couple years. The city is continually removing urban campers from city-owned land and a working group, formed in response to the issue of homelessness, has five possible ordinances on the table.
Not only have Montana municipalities been passing laws expressly with Grants Pass and Martin in mind, the state also has one of the fastest growing populations of homeless people in the country.
Between 2007 — when the nationwide annual tracking began — and 2023, the number of people experiencing homelessness increased in 25 states, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2023 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report.
Montana had the second-largest percentage increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness at 89% and the third-largest percentage increase from 2022 to 2023 at 45%.
Those trends are in part due to the skyrocketing housing prices across the state.
Montana ranks eighth among states for fastest home price appreciation since 2020. The "typical home value" in Montana averaged $440,000 in the first quarter of 2023, up from $280,000 three years ago, according to a state report. As of 2021, 42% of renters were classified as cost-burdened, meaning they spent more than 30% of their household income solely on rent.
Opinions from the Supreme Court can typically be expected in June and July of the same year.
"I just hope that no matter what happens with the U.S. Supreme Court decision that we as Montanans will be compassionate to our neighbors who don't have a place to sleep at night," Hall said. "The well being of our communities depends on [it]."