The Supreme Court’s June 2024 ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson upholds an ordinance in Grants Pass, Oregon that makes it illegal to sleep outside – which creates an enormous public health problem for people that have nowhere else to go.
Below is a statement from Alex Volpe, Executive Director of Beloved Village, a community-based housing program in California that works with young women and gender-expansive youth in foster care or juvenile detention facilities.
“Homelessness is not a crime. The Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson makes it easier for cities to criminalize homelessness rather than investing in services and support for people living on the streets. Incarceration is neither a solution, nor an appropriate intervention for poverty, and it creates a vicious circle of people cycling in and out of our jails and prisons. This is one more law in America that criminalizes being poor. These kinds of policies open the door to harassment by police, and saddle people on the streets with arrest records, fines and fees, which make it next to impossible to crawl out of poverty.
Banning encampments is a cruel decision that makes life even more difficult for many of the young people we work with – and for cities struggling with a large homeless population and housing crisis. It is a serious blow to human rights. It will only lead to more violent encounters with police and exacerbated mental health symptoms for people living on the streets as sleep is as fundamental to survival as water, food or oxygen. Meanwhile, it does nothing to create incentives for cities to resolve the issue of insufficient shelters and affordable housing options. Here in California and in much of the U.S., rents have skyrocketed, leaving a record number of Americans unable to afford their rent, and many more people at risk of homelessness.”
About Alex Volpe, Executive Director of Beloved Village
Alex Volpe is the Executive Director at Beloved Community Housing. Alex has been working with underserved youth and families for 20+ years. Upon completing her Masters in Social Work at the University of Chicago in 2005, Alex worked as a therapist at Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, a residential treatment facility in Chicago. After moving to the East Bay with her family in 2008, Alex began working at Bay Area Youth Center (BAYC)/Sunny Hills Services (now “Side by Side”), a nonprofit serving foster and probation youth. Alex led BAYC as the Executive Director from 2013-2017. Under Alex’s leadership, BAYC significantly expanded mental health and housing services to youth in Alameda County and earned a reputation as an agency who would provide shelter and services to the highest need youth who were often terminated from other services due to their acute symptoms and behaviors. Alex is committed to the principles of trauma-responsive care and providing culturally relevant services to young people and their families.
Prior to becoming a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Alex received her JD from the University of Texas in Austin and worked as a corporate and securities attorney in San Francisco and Austin. She currently lives in Oakland with her children.
About Beloved Village
Beloved Community Housing (“Beloved”) was founded in 2020 by Young Women’s Freedom Center to create community-based housing solutions for women, girls, and trans people of all genders who have experienced violence, incarceration, poverty, and life on the streets. We provide dignified housing solutions that don’t further criminalize families but rather support their self-determination in the pursuit of the vision laid out in the 2030 Freedom Charter.