Grants Pass Ruling Homeless Camping Bans Adopted in 14 States, 350 Cities

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.

The Grants Pass v Johnson impact on enforcement

States have varied in their approaches toward street homelessness since the 2024 ruling, including imposing statewide camping bans on public lands, setting mandates for local governments to enforce those bans and, in some cases, allowing property owners to sue their local government if they do not comply with enforcement of statewide camping bans, according to details gathered by the National Homelessness Law Center.

New state homeless camping laws and legal measures

This year, Louisiana made unauthorized public camping a crime and created a Homelessness Court program, where an unhoused person charged with a crime could seek treatment as an alternative to jail time. Indiana’s new law, which bans unauthorized camping, sleeping and sheltering on state or local public land, goes into effect in July.

Georgia and Oklahoma enacted Safe Neighborhood laws, which allow property owners to seek compensation from local governments if they fail to enforce laws tied to public camping, loitering and panhandling. Some measures have been modeled after legislation drafted by groups such as the conservative think tanks Cicero Institute and the Goldwater Institute.