Robbie Sequeira

Two years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass v. Johnson decision — which allowed governments to enforce public camping bans without violating the Eighth Amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment — more than 350 cities and 14 states have adopted laws or measures to crack down on street homelessness.

As the homeless population has grown and become more visible, many cities and states have pivoted from a focus on the rights of homeless people to the rights of local residents and businesses that are being forced to contend with homeless encampments and other fallout from the nation’s shortage of affordable housing.