The Supreme Court has been busy. The court has issued a series of headline-making rulings in the past few weeks. The conservative supermajority has granted presidents a striking amount of immunity for “official acts”; reduced the power of federal agencies, such as the EPA; and handed a victory to many who have been charged or found guilty in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — and that’s just in the last few weeks.

And on top of the litany of controversial rulings, the court has been marred in a deeply troubling ethics scandal. Not only did Justice Clarence Thomas take numerous undisclosed gifts from a billionaire friend who had cases before the court, but Justice Samuel Alito was caught on tape openly discussing his desire for America to be a more Christian nation.

All of this noise has likely left some missing one of the court’s recent rulings that is likely to have a huge impact on Boulder: Grants Pass v. Johnson.

Late last month the Supreme Court ruled in support of an Oregon city’s law banning homeless people from sleeping outside — reversing the decision of a lower court that found the ban to be cruel and unusual punishment.

The ruling essentially holds that people experiencing homelessness can be subject to criminal and civil penalties for sleeping in public spaces.

As we all know, Boulder has its own ban on camping and tents in public spaces. And much like in Grants Pass, the city was sued over the law.

In April, a Boulder district judge halted court proceedings in the lawsuit to see how the Supreme Court would rule on the case in Oregon, citing the impact the decision would likely have on the lawsuit.

Of course, the Grants Pass camping ban and Boulder’s camping ban are not identical, so even in the face of this new ruling, it is not guaranteed that Boulder’s ban will withstand the American Civil Liberties Union’s challenge. But the ruling does make it exceedingly likely that Boulder’s ban will stand.

That means it is time for us as a community to look ourselves in the mirror and ask what our values are and how we can best go about living them.

To start, it is worth understanding why previous precedent had held that camping bans amounted to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. In a decision from 1962 in Robinson v. California, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment barred local governments from criminalizing the “illness” of narcotic addiction. Writing for the majority, Justice Potter Stewart explained that even “one day in prison for the ‘crime’ of having a common cold,” would be cruel and unusual.

In other words, criminalizing status, such as being addicted to drugs, was cruel and unusual.

In the years since, courts used this precedent to rule that being unhoused was a status, and thus inflicting criminal or civil punishments for camping or sleeping in public spaces was generally barred under the Eighth Amendment.

It is important to point out that camping bans can be used as a tool for municipalities to maintain public safety.

Keeping people safe — students, bikers and walkers, those who are experiencing homelessness, everyone — is imperative. And having the ability to enforce safety is necessary. But a code allowing encampments to be swept for safety purposes is very different than a general ban on camping and tents.

This is because camping bans don’t work. According to Boulder’s latest point-in-time count, there are about 170 people living unsheltered in our community. And according to the city’s Safe Management of Public Spaces Data Dashboard, there have already been more than 540 encampment cleanups this year.

The math here is painfully obvious. If we clean up encampments without providing people with the resources and support to get off the street, they will simply return to camping in our public spaces.

In addition to costing us tax dollars that could be better spent on lifting people up, criminalization of camping is likely to only lead vulnerable individuals to jail — where those with mental health and addiction issues are already languishing while awaiting a bed in a treatment facility.

And if someone is experiencing homelessness before they go to jail, they are statistically likely to be homeless once they are released from jail.

The cycle is all-consuming.

Unless our goal is to make it so hostile to be homeless in Boulder that people simply leave our community, criminalizing camping is not a solution to our problem.

Whether or not camping bans are legal under the eyes of the Supreme Court does not mean it is right or just or humane. Our laws are manifestations of our values. And to criminalize sleeping outside is cruel and it is punishment — especially if we are not investing in adequate alternatives.

The right and just and humane thing to do is invest in resources and housing units and ways in which we can lift up everyone in our community — and to invest in our safety nets to prevent people from falling into precarity or homelessness in the first place.

Of course, it is easy to talk about these principles when they are just that — principles. It is another thing altogether to realize them. To invest tax dollars in them. To find the infrastructure and the professionals and employees to make it happen.

But Boulder has already done so much good on this front: Between 2017 and September 2023, the city has seen over 1,800 exits from homelessness. We have the ability to care for those in need in our community. All it takes is a willingness to invest in our values and our priorities.

We are all in favor of our public spaces not being monopolized by tents. We all want our bike paths and sidewalks to be clear. We all want our city to be beautiful. We all want to be — and deserve to be — safe. But a ban on tents and sleeping outside is not the way to achieve these goals. And it is not a reflection of our values of inclusivity and equity.

It is our hope that our leaders and our community will continue charting a path forward on homelessness that is grounded in dignity and respect for our neighbors and that invests our tax dollars in solutions — not punishment.

Gary Garrison for the Editorial Board