News

ACLU California Action and the ACLUs of Northern California, Southern California, and San Diego & Imperial Counties are prepared to meet the Trump administration head on. Read More

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The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson opens the door for cities to cite and arrest people simply for being homeless. However, San Francisco has policies and an ordinance requiring the city to offer shelter before clearing encampments. Our lawsuit challenging San Francisco's costly and ineffective response to homelessness will proceed. Read More

The Supreme Court’s decision could have far-reaching implications for unhoused people. However, most of the legal issues in Coalition on Homelessness v. City of San Francisco, which challenges the City’s costly and ineffective practice of citing, arresting, and moving unhoused individuals without offering real alternative shelter and destroying their belongings, are not under review in the Grants ... Read More

Grants Pass v. Johnson involves an Oregon town that passed ordinances barring people from sleeping outside in public using a blanket, pillow, or even a cardboard sheet to lie on. Last year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that criminally punishing unhoused people violates the Eighth Amendment “if there are no other public areas or appropriate shelters where those individuals can sleep.” Read More

In a brief filed in federal district court, plaintiffs in Coalition on Homelessness v. City of San Francisco argued that the case should proceed while the U.S. Supreme Court reviews Grants Pass v. Johnson. Read More

Although one of thirteen claims directly builds on the findings in the Grants Pass case, the San Francisco lawsuit also deals with separate issues affecting unhoused individuals including the City’s destruction of property and failure to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities. Read More

The decision could upend decades of established Supreme Court precedent, and reopen a definition of cruel and unusual punishment that protects all Americans from unconstitutional treatment in the criminal legal system. Read More

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a federal judge’s finding that San Francisco had likely violated the constitutional rights of homeless people thousands of times in recent years by criminalizing their existence. Read More

The new policy allows a defendant with an active arrest warrant to schedule an initial court appearance through their attorney regardless of their financial means. Someone who can’t afford bail must still appear at the jail for an informal booking. However they won’t be taken into custody. Once in court, a judge makes an individualized determination about whether that person should remain out of c... Read More

The ACLU of Northern California and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area filed a brief opposing the city of San Francisco's request to reassign the Coalition on Homelessness case to a judge who handled a case regarding the city's response to street homelessness that was dismissed and closed three years ago. Read More

In August, the court asked San Francisco to identify how it has trained staff to ensure the city is following a preliminary injunction preventing it from illegally destroying unhoused residents’ property. The city's only training tool is a brief presentation that does not meaningfully explain the procedures public works employees must follow when handling people's belongings. Read More