A SCOTUS decision favorable to Grants Pass would open the door for cities across the U.S. to apply even more draconian policies against houseless people, while making no provisions to ensure adequate housing exists. Rather than allocating necessary resources to address problems of chronic homelessness, many cities are already diverting resources to increase policing to round up unhoused individuals and families simply for being poor.

Meanwhile, RentCafe.com estimates that the average cost to rent an 899 square foot apartment in the U.S. as of March 2024 was $1,713 per month or $20,556 per year. A worker paid the federal minimum wage would only make $15,000 per year working 40 hours per week.

The highest court’s battle takes place against a background of housing being unaffordable for a record half of renters, according to a 2022 Joint Center for Housing study at Harvard University. The study found that as rents spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic 2020-2022, renters in every income category paid over 30% of their income for rent and utilities. In some cases, they paid over 50%.

Lower-income workers and families making $30,000 to $74,000 a year were hard-hit, but renters earning under $30,000, already struggling to afford housing, faced an 83% increase in costs. The number of people sleeping outside or in shelters increased 12% in 2023 over the previous year.

The Harvard study found nearly a third of households headed by people 65 and older pay over 30% of their income for housing. Half of that group pays more than 50%. In 2021, 11.2 million households were headed by seniors.

A SCOTUS ruling against unhoused people could also lead to landlords raising rents, knowing that people must either pay high rents or risk being jailed. Buying homes is also increasingly unaffordable for most households, especially with interest rates for loans now over 7% and wages stagnant or falling after inflation.