Oregon
As Grants Pass case looms, Oregon advocates urge U.S. Supreme Court to protect homeless • Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon advocates for marginalized communities are speaking out on behalf of the state’s homeless and downtrodden as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear a case that started in Grants Pass and could set parameters for how cities nationwide can deal with homeless camps.
The case, Grants Pass v. Johnson, began as a lawsuit by a group of homeless people against restrictions in the southern Oregon city on outdoor sleeping. Although the case’s outcome will have a national impact on homeless camping laws, there will be less of one in Oregon. That’s because Oregon lawmakers passed a state law in 2021 that prevents cities from punishing people sleeping outside on public property. Under the state law, cities can put “objectively reasonable” restrictions that regulate the time, place and manner of camps without outright bans.
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments on April 22 on the case, Oregon advocates are asking the court to remember the broader principles that frame the homeless issue, both in Oregon and across the nation.
Disability Rights Oregon, the Oregon Food Bank and 15 other Oregon groups, including the Cascade AIDS Project, Habitat for Humanity of Oregon and Partners for a Hunger Free Oregon, have signed onto amicus briefs in support of the plaintiffs. At the core of their arguments, advocates say, is that homeless people should not be punished as jail time and fines will only deepen their challenges.
“Criminalization just doesn’t work as a tool to help people exit their experience from housing insecurity, their experience from homelessness,” Loren Naldoza, Oregon Food Bank public policy advocate, said in an interview. “It only makes it worse.”
The Grants Pass case initially sought to overturn a local ordinance that barred homeless people from using blankets, pillows or cardboard boxes while sleeping outside in public to guard against the rain, snow and wind.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ordinance was the equivalent of cruel and unusual punishment because it penalized people because they are homeless, violating the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Disability Rights Oregon signed onto a separate brief filed by disability advocates from across the nation. The brief notes that homeless people are more likely to suffer mental health conditions and other disabilities that contribute to their homelessness and encourages solutions like affordable and stable housing – not criminal penalties.
“No mother chooses to raise her children without stable housing, but when she finds herself in that situation, that family needs a safe place to rest,” Jake Cornett, executive director and CEO of Disability Rights Oregon, said in a statement. “Criminalizing homelessness is not going to solve any problem in our communities. It’s past time for Oregon to focus on affordability, accessible shelters, low-barrier housing, and building a functioning behavioral health system.”
Separately, nearly 50 groups nationwide, including the Equality Federation in Portland, filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to declare that ordinances that criminalize homelessness are unconstitutional, including for members of the LGBTQ+ community who are disproportionately harmed by such ordinances.
The filing draws upon statistics to show the disproportionate impact of homelessness on the LGBTQ+ community. For example, LGBTQ+ youth make up 40% of unhoused youth and 65% of youth with frequent homelessness, even though they make up less than 10% of the population, the brief said.
“Since a disproportionately high number of unhoused people are from the LGBTQIA+ community, this is an issue of particular importance for the organizations who joined our amicus brief,” said Chinyere Ezie, a senior attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based nonprofit social justice center. “We hope the Supreme Court will recognize the dangers posed to all unhoused people by the discriminatory ordinances at stake.”
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The Oregon Lottery offers several draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at March 5, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Pick 4 numbers from March 5 drawing
1PM: 6-6-8-1
4PM: 7-4-6-0
7PM: 5-6-5-2
10PM: 3-5-4-4
Check Pick 4 payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
When are the Oregon Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 7:59 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 7:59 p.m. on Tuesday and Friday.
- Pick 4: 1 p.m., 4 p.m., 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. daily.
- Win for Life: 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Megabucks: 7:29 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by an Oregon editor. You can send feedback using this form.
With the winter evaluation period of high school football recruiting now behind us, we’ve seen some of the top recruiting sites update their rankings over the past few weeks and start to reset their boards for the 2027 class. In February, On3 shifted players around after getting fresh looks at the class, and 247Sports did the same earlier this week.
So with Oregon’s handful of commits getting new ratings, where does the Ducks’ class rank nationally in this cycle?
If you look at sites individually, it looks different, with 247Sports having Oregon sitting at No. 13 in the nation. At Rivals, though, they take the industry ranking, which factors in their own rankings, plus an average from 247Sports and ESPN.
In the industry rankings, Oregon sits at No. 9 in the nation, with five commitments.
Going into the summer months, the Ducks are in a great spot, leading or among the top schools for a handful of the top prospects in the nation, like 5-star QB Will Mencl or 5-star WR Dakota Guerrant. We will see what movement Oregon can make in the coming months after official visits take place early in the summer.
Contact/Follow @Ducks_Wire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oregon Ducks news, notes, and opinions.
Data released by the Oregon Health Authority this week suggests Oregonians are getting hurt on electric scooters more every year.
In recent years, according to OHA, an “e-scooter-specific code” was developed for health care tracking purposes.
From 2021 to 2024, annual injury reports under this code from Oregon hospitals and emergency departments jumped from 211 to 418.
And in just the first nine months of 2025, there had been 509 such reports.
“These injuries are not minor scrapes,” said Dagan Wright, an OHA epidemiologist, in a written statement. “They often involve head injuries, broken bones, and other serious trauma that requires emergency or inpatient care.”
The city of Portland signed contracts with three e-scooter rental companies in 2018, as the transportation craze spread across the country. But e-scooter injury diagnosis codes are relatively new in health care reporting, Wright said in the OHA statement.
“While the overall numbers remain smaller than for other transportation-related injuries, the rapid increase over a short period of time is a clear safety signal,” OHA added.
The agency highlighted the story of Portland e-scooter commuter Daniel Pflieger, who it says was riding a scooter home when he reportedly slid on ice. He bruised several ribs.
Sometimes outcomes are worse. OHA identified 17 deaths linked to electric or motorized scooters since 2018, and seven of those occurred in 2025.
OHA says that e-bikes raise many similar safety concerns as e-scooters. The first full year for which e-bike injuries were coded for reporting was 2023. State data shows 392 reported e-bike injuries that year, 683 in 2024, and 760 in the first nine months of 2025.
“Injuries involving e-bikes and e-scooters share common risk factors—speed, lack of helmet use, roadway design, and interactions with motor vehicles,” Wright said.
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