Results: Can homeless people be fined for sleeping outside? A rural Oregon city asks the US Supreme Court

Like many Western communities, Grants Pass has struggled for years with a burgeoning homeless population. Have you notice more people sleeping outside in your area?

The town's case, set to be heard April 22, has broad implications for how not only Grants Pass, but communities nationwide address homelessness, including whether they can fine or jail people for camping in public. It has made the town of 40,000 the unlikely face of the nation's homelessness crisis, and further fueled the debate over how to deal with it. Do you think people should be fined or jailed for camping in public?

A 2018 decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that while communities are allowed to prohibit tents in public spaces, it violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment to give people criminal citations for sleeping outside when they had no place else to go. Civil rights groups and attorneys for the homeless residents who challenged the restrictions in 2018 insist people shouldn't be punished for lacking housing. "For years, political leaders have chosen to tolerate encampments as an alternative to meaningfully addressing the western region's severe housing shortage," the attorneys wrote. "It is easier to blame the courts than to take responsibility for finding a solution." Do you agree that political leaders have chosen to tolerate encampments as an alternative to meaningfully addressing the western region's severe housing shortage?