A federal judge slammed the brakes Friday on a lawsuit that has pitted San Francisco homeless advocates against The City for more than a year.
U.S. District Court Judge Donna M. Ryu approved The City’s request to pause legal proceedings in the battle over The City’s clearing of homelessness encampments while the U.S. Supreme Court takes up a case that touches on similar themes.
Friday’s ruling leaves in place a preliminary injunction — one that was first issued by Ryu more than a year ago and has been disputed by The City in the months since — that sets guidelines for San Francisco’s approach to clearing homeless encampments from its streets. The City will still be subject to independent monitoring of its efforts to resolve homeless encampments.
City Attorney David Chiu lauded Ryu’s order in a statement.
“We appreciate that the District Court’s decision spares the City from wasting public resources litigating this case when the entire legal landscape may soon change,” Chiu said.
The City had argued that it was pointless to continue litigating in San Francisco until the Supreme Court issues its ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson, which will have repercussions for cities across the country.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision in Grants Pass in June.
Ex // Top Stories
Amid a tumultuous stretch, the autonomous-vehicle firm is reportedly in talks to resume testing its services, possibly in Houston or Dallas
With pregnancy risks much higher for Black mothers, the San Francisco Black Infant Health Program provides vital support
Despite some opposition, most supervisors agreed that homeless projects should not require competitive bidding
Both the San Francisco and Grants Pass cases pose questions about the constitutional limits cities face when enforcing laws against people who are unhoused. The issue has become particularly fraught as homelessness has risen throughout cities — particularly on the West Coast — in recent years.
“The Grants Pass decision underpins every aspect of [the] case against the City and is the foundation of the preliminary injunction issued by the District Court,” Chiu said. “Not a single argument against San Francisco can be untangled from Grants Pass.”
Attorneys for the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness had countered that the two cases diverged in several important ways.
“The Supreme Court can and should affirm that the government can’t jail you based on your status, who you are, or a condition you have. The case can proceed and take into account any future Supreme Court ruling,” John Do, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, said in a statement last month. “The majority of our case is unrelated to whether The City’s practices are cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment and must be resolved.”
Representing seven homeless people, the Coalition on Homelessness sued The City in September 2022, alleging that The City’s homeless sweeps violated Eighth Amendment protections from cruel and unusual punishment, an accusation also made in the Grants Pass case.
However, attorneys in San Francisco have also alleged that The City failed to properly collect peoples’ belongings when conducting encampment sweeps, violating both its own laws and Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Despite her ruling Friday, Ryu noted that she will still address a request from homeless advocates to enforce the preliminary injunction “with respect to the Fourth Amendment claim and will determine if further litigation activity is warranted with respect to that part of the case during the stay.”
