(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Supreme Court will consider how far cities can go to prevent homeless people from sleeping in public places, agreeing to hear an appeal from an Oregon town that makes it a crime to use a blanket, pillow or cardboard shelter.

Acting at a time of record US homelessness, the justices said they will review a federal appeals ruling that said the city of Grants Pass is violating the ban on cruel and unusual punishment in the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.

West Coast cities and states urged the high court to intervene, saying the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has sharply restricted their ability to clear out encampments that pose health and safety threats. The latest ruling built on a 2019 9th Circuit decision that said homeless people have a constitutional right to sleep on public property if no other shelter is available. 

The five years since that ruling “have been, if anything more disastrous than even its fiercest critics predicted,” Grants Pass told the justices.

Los Angeles, Phoenix and San Francisco were among the cities that asked the high court to step in, along with California Governor Gavin Newsom and 20 states led by Idaho and Montana. San Francisco city and county said the appeals court was exacerbating an “overwhelming homelessness crisis” there.

Lawyers for the two homeless people suing Grants Pass said the cities were overstating the impact of the 9th Circuit decision, saying it doesn’t preclude officials from outlawing encampments or tents on public property.

“The panel held only that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the city from punishing homeless persons for engaging in the unavoidable biological function of sleeping with the minimal bedding necessary to survive cold nights when shelter is unavailable,” attorneys for Gloria Johnson and John Logan argued. 

They argued that that the Eighth Amendment “prohibits punishing people for having an involuntary status.”

Grants Pass says the 9th Circuit rulings “have no foundation in the Constitution’s original meaning or our nation’s history and traditions.”

The Supreme Court previously refused to review the 2019 ruling. The court has grown more conservative since then with the seating of three justices appointed by then-President Donald Trump.

The case is Grants Pass v. Johnson, 23-175.

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