Home > Journals > WMLR > Vol. 67 (2025-2026) > Iss. 4 (2026)
William & Mary Law Review
Abstract
In City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment does not prohibit a city from enforcing a criminal ban on encampments on public property such as parks and sidewalks. But even if municipalities are now permitted to use tactics such as policing, encampment clearing, arrests, and imprisonment, these are not the right ways to address the problems of public homelessness.
Instead, homelessness must be understood as one of many conflicts over limited public space. At its best, vibrant sidewalk life enhances communities and local economies. But at its worst, every use of these finite spaces threatens every other use of them, from transportation to recreation, commerce, community building, art, infrastructure, and much more. Cities, therefore, need to regulate sidewalks with a wide-angle lens that engages holistically with the numerous forces that shape that space. Homelessness—sidewalk living—is best addressed as part and parcel of those broader efforts.
These policies include, but are not limited to, expanding the availability of affordable housing, reducing the pervasiveness of unnecessary parking lots and zoning restrictions, and limiting the prevalence of unduly restrictive public space regulations that interfere with activities that serve communities and also help people get out of poverty. But even more important than the specifics, it is in stepping back from homelessness in particular, and in approaching these issues together as facets of responsible stewardship of public space, that municipalities can make more room and a more harmonious sidewalk life for everyone.