How the Supreme Court ruling affects homeless populations around the Pittsburgh area

As the Supreme Court cements cities' authority to create anti-camping laws to regulate homelessness in their communities, it's not just urban areas contending with the implications.

In one of its most significant decisions on homelessness in decades, the court sided with dozens of localities on the West Coast, finding that their ordinances banning people from sleeping in public spaces do not violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.

Leaders and shelter providers across Beaver, Washington and Westmoreland counties echoed what Pittsburgh advocates told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last week — that such bans would render the same devastating effects on their homeless population, even if the challenges look different.

JoJo Burgess's stance is clear: "As long as I am mayor of the city of Washington, there will be no change in the approach that we have with our homeless people. No one will be criminally charged in Washington."

Burgess said the vast majority of people in Washington's shelter system are veterans with mental health challenges, so the ruling would disproportionately punish this already vulnerable group.

"I'm a veteran also, so these are my brothers and sisters, and we're telling them, 'You went and defended this country, and now we're going to lock you up for not having your stuff together,'" he said.

As growing street homelessness over the pandemic has challenged municipalities across the country, Washington County's Human Services shifted the way it delivers services. To better address the root causes, the department implemented a new model over the past year to evaluate each person who reaches out for assistance for possible compounding needs, such as housing, mental health, food or employment.

Arrests, fines or jail time have no place in this new approach, Burgess said.

"The court has taken a, what I feel, very religious and conservative view," he said. "But what happened to, 'I am my brother's keeper,' and helping people? No, let's penalize them. Since when is it criminal to be down on your luck?"

It's not the criminal justice system, he said, that has made homelessness less prevalent in his community, it's shelters. Burgess reached out to Diana Irey Vaughan, the president and CEO of Washington's City Mission, after the ruling was announced.

"He pledged to me personally to work with me to make sure that we take care of individuals who are in need," Irey Vaughan said. "The conversation since I have been serving here has always been around, 'How do we provide individuals shelter, food, medical care and self-sufficiency skills? We're very fortunate here in Washington."

When faced with sweeping regulations like a homeless camping ban, Burgess also said it can force people into a corner.

He recalls one instance where public safety officials were called to respond to someone sleeping at a bus stop. Burgess spoke to the man personally and found that he was comfortable being where he was. There were certain restrictions at City Mission that he didn't want to adhere to around substance use.

"So should he be criminally charged for not going to City Mission?" Burgess said. "It's just going to lead to more chaos."

Dan Carney, executive director of Union Mission Latrobe, is not sensing any changes on the horizon in Westmoreland County. He hopes it stays that way as demand grows. Union Mission remains the county's only homeless shelter for adult men and is working to add 12 more beds to its current 24-bed capacity.

"There are definitely bells and whistles going off," Carney said. "Does this empower police force to simply pick folks up in those municipalities that might create some sort of ordinance or ban and just drop them off in a neighboring community?"

For now, it seems that years long efforts to help local police and policymakers better understand the challenge of homelessness are paying off. Carney said local police will call outreach groups if they find someone in need on the street. Sometimes, they take the extra step and transport them to a shelter.

Putting these individuals in jail instead would just add more strain to already overburdened systems, Carney said.

"We still have backlogs from COVID in some of our magisterial districts," he said. "It does make a difference, I think, when the police force are leveraging those relationships that they've built. We don't have to worry about that long-term prosecutorial issue."

While remaining hopeful, he thinks this is a moment to leverage for the better. Since the ruling, the Westmoreland County Homeless Advisory Board is pushing to meet with municipal leaders. They are hoping to get the Department of Human Services and commissioners to issue a formal statement against criminalizing homelessness.

"There has to be bringing together social service providers, faith community, community members and leadership toward doing this through a compassionate lens," he said.

Commissioner Douglas Chew is open to more conversation, though he doesn't foresee any regulations along the lines of what Oregon localities were trying to implement. "Honestly, there's quite a few that don't even have zoning or things of that nature, so I can't possibly see that."

As far as a county-wide effort, Chew said said Westmoreland County doesn't have the power to impose sweeping rules across all its municipalities, like Allegheny County does. The limitations would go each way, either in implementing more protections for homeless people living outside or more punitive consequences.

"We do have 65 municipalities, but to my knowledge, those municipalities have not had any ordinances like that, and to my knowledge, have not considered them," he said.

As chair of the county's prison board, Chew adds that he wasn't aware of any cases of homeless people being charged with crimes like trespassing.

Sprawling rural communities like Westmoreland don't see the kind of encampments that draw public scrutiny and become a target for sweeps in cities like Pittsburgh. Yet, social service networks in these areas also tend to be less centralized and well funded compared to their more urban counterparts.

Westmoreland, in particular, is the poorest-performing county of its size in providing shelter options, with less than 100 beds for a population of more than 300,000 people.

Chew said that's why they formed a Homeless Advisory Board for the first time this year, to devise new strategies.

In Beaver Falls, The Cornerstone of Beaver County is the first line of defense for people experiencing homelessness. The organization's executive director, Marie Timpano, said she fields calls from the police, hospitals and businesses, as well as the aging, children's and behavioral health systems.

"We're a small enough community that we're able to respond," she said. "They will call us, and we will go to those locations to present them with options."

Since the pandemic, she has noticed certain groups becoming more vulnerable than ever, including the elderly, veterans and people with disabilities. That's why she doesn't want local governments to look to bans as a solution.

"It's like, we don't have a good answer so we're just going to criminalize it," she said. "It's reminiscent of things that have happened previously with substance use disorder and mental health. It's an unfortunate thing that really affects individuals who are already marginalized, feeling invisible, unvalued."

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