In a 6-0 unanimous decision, the Supreme Court of Missouri has sided with the appellants — including Springfield-based nonprofit Eden Village/Gathering Tree — in their challenge to the relatively new law that many Missourians view as criminalizing homelessness.
According to the decision released Dec. 19, the court agreed the law violates the single subject requirement because a provision of the bill relating to homelessness has only a remote connection with the bill’s subject of political subdivisions.
The law was created by House Bill 1606, an omnibus bill that officially pertained to political subdivisions. It was signed into law by Republican Gov. Mike Parson in 2022. Since then, it has garnered attention and controversy throughout the state for a provision that makes it a misdemeanor crime to sleep, live, or build shelter on state government-owned property without permission.
The case — Johnathan Byrd, et al., The Gathering Tree d/b/a Eden Village v. State of Missouri — made its way to the state’s highest court in late September.
Attorneys for the appellants, Adina Rosenbaum and Benjamin Stringer, argued then to the Supreme Court judges HB1606 violates the single subject, clear title, and original purpose requirements of the Missouri Constitution.
“The critique of this bill is not that it doesn’t address political subdivisions. The critique is that it addresses political subdivisions and other matters that are outside political subdivisions,” Stringer said in court. “The state has tried to argue that this criminalization of homelessness relates to political subdivisions because political subdivisions become the enforcer of this provision.
“But if that were true, you could rewrite the entire criminal criminal code and say political subdivisions are the enforcer of the criminal code, label the bill related to political subdivisions and all of the sudden, you’ve rewritten the entire criminal code under the auspice of relating to political subdivisions,” Stringer continued. “For these reasons, we ask HB1606 be found unconstitutional.”
Reached by phone following the ruling, Stringer called the court's decision “very cool for all the right reasons.”
“It's an illustration of how checks and balances work and why an independent, strong judiciary is so important,” Stringer said. “This is a unanimous decision by the Supreme Court. You have to have people who understand the law and whose job it is to make sure the law is being applied consistent with the rules. And those can't be the same people who are passing the laws.
“My hope is that if the legislature has the desire and the intention of giving its attention to our unsheltered friends,” he continued, “then it will go back and give that attention in a way that is transparent and inclusive of a range of voices so that we can make sure we have the most effective, the most efficient and the most compassionate approach to caring for people who are vulnerable.”
Nate Schlueter, chief visionary officer with Eden Village, is one of the appellants in the case. Eden Village I and II are tiny home communities for disabled, chronically homeless people in Springfield.
“We are super grateful that it was unanimous,” Schlueter said of the court's decision. “We think that sends a strong message to other states and organizations that are fighting the same battle really from the same group of lobbyists. ...
“More importantly, we are just ecstatic that homelessness isn't criminalized in Missouri anymore,” Schlueter said. “Obviously that was our motivation.”
Schlueter and his daughter traveled to Jefferson City in September to hear the attorneys argue their case. He described the trip to the Supreme Court of Missouri and then learning of the court's decision on Tuesday as a “cool personal learning experience about the justice system.”
Entire law struck down
Once finding the homelessness provisions unconstitutional, the court weighed whether that required it to strike down the rest of the sprawling bill.
“It takes an extraordinary showing to convince this court to engage in judicial surgery to save a bill infected with the otherwise fatal constitutional disease of multiple subjects” Judge Paul C. Wilson wrote as author of the court's opinion, “and no effort was made by any party to make such a showing here.”
As a result, the rest of the bill — including provisions related to county financial statements, county coroners’ salaries, and more — were also struck down Tuesday, with the court arguing it was unable to determine whether the bill would’ve passed without the homelessness provisions.
What questions were asked of the Supreme Court?
The first question before the Supreme Court was whether HB1606 violates the single subject requirement of the Missouri Constitution. Specifically, the section of the new law that was challenged is 67.2300. The issues are whether this section fairly relates to political subdivisions; what effect, if any, the fact that section applies to entities beyond political subdivisions has on the single subject requirement; and whether that section imposes any oversight requirements on political subdivisions.
A political subdivision is any unit of government created by or under the authority of a higher level of government.
A second question involved whether HB1606 violates the state constitution’s clear title requirement.
A third question involved whether HB1606 violates the state constitution’s original purpose requirement. When the bill was originally introduced, it was titled an act relating to “county financial statements.” The bill sought to reduce the amount of financial information certain counties were required to publish in newspapers.
Clayton Weems with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office argued to the justices that the appellants asked the judges to look at one subsection of the law “in complete isolation” and that the following subsection of the law clarifies how the subsections is related to political subdivisions.
In the brief submitted by the Attorney General’s Office, the state argued the section does relate to political subdivisions, particularly with regards to funding for homeless services.
“Section 67.2300 provides political subdivisions with state funding to properly serve their homeless constituents, and places guardrails to ensure those state funds are spent appropriately,” part of the brief reads. “As such, the circuit court correctly found that Section 67.2300 ‘plainly relates to HB 1606’s single subject regarding the operation and regulation of political subdivisions.’”
Was the language ‘slipped in’ to the bill?
The appellant brief details how HB 1606 made its way through the House of Representatives, then Senate and eventually winding up of Parson’s desk. What started out as legislation related to county financial statements and how they should be published in newspapers went through multiple revisions with language, amendments and provisions added and removed — including the language related to unauthorized camping.
Missouri House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, shared with the Hauxeda earlier this year that several lawmakers didn’t realize the language about homelessness had been added to the bill when they voted for it last year.
“This was added on to a giant omnibus bill right at the end of the session, and a lot of folks didn’t know,” Quade said in January, “because the underlying bill we were all supportive of. And then there were several amendments added at the very last, I think it may have been the last week of session.”
The Missouri Independent contributed to this story.
