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The case started in , which began fining people $295 for sleeping outside as the cost of housing escalated and tents sprang up in the city’s public parks. The San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law under its holding that banning camping in places without enough shelter beds amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

Throughout a more than two-hour argument, the justices seemed to divide along ideological lines with conservatives who make up the court’s majority suggesting that elected officials and lawmakers — not judges — should be setting local rules for dealing with homeless people.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked the Biden administration’s lawyer: “Why would you think these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?�

Solving homelessness is a complicated issue, said Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He questioned whether ticketing people for camping helps if there aren’t enough shelter beds to hold everyone, but also raised concerns about federal courts “micromanaging� policy.

The justices appeared to be leaning toward a narrow ruling in the case after hearing arguments that showed the stark terms of the debate over homelessness in Western states like California, which is home to one-third of the country’s homeless population.

Sleeping is a biological necessity, and people may be forced to do it outside if they can’t get housing or there’s no space in shelters, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

“Where do we put them if every city, every village, every town lacks compassion and passes a law identical to this? Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves, not sleeping?� she said.

Other conservative justices asked how far Eighth Amendment legal protections should extend as cities struggle with managing homeless encampments that can be dangerous and unsanitary.

“How about if there are no public bathroom facilities, do people have an Eighth Amendment right to defecate and urinate outdoors?� said Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Other public-health laws cover that situation, Justice Department attorney Edwin Kneedler said. He argued people shouldn’t be punished just for sleeping outside, but said the ruling striking down the Grants Pass law should be tossed out because the court didn’t do enough to determine if people are “involuntarily homeless.�

Officially, Grants Pass has more than 600 unhoused residents, with another 1,000 living on the edge. But local service providers say at least twice as many are homeless. Grants Pass does not have a homeless shelter. Its only major transitional housing program, the Gospel Rescue Mission, is a privately-run religious facility with 138 beds and stringent requirements for residents, such as regular chapel attendance and abstinence from substances and romantic relationships.

As a result of the 9th Circuit panel’s ruling, the attorney for Grants Pass told the Supreme Court, encampments have multiplied unchecked throughout the West because restrictions on public camping no longer play their critical deterrent role, resulting in spikes in violent crime, drug overdoses, disease, fires and hazardous waste.

In response, lawyers for the homeless individuals said state and local officials are still free to restrict tents in public spaces, to clear encampments and even to fine homeless people who decline other shelter options. But the city cannot punish people with no alternatives, they argued.

“States have broad policing powers, but it does not include the power to push the burdens of social problems like poverty on to other communities or the power to satisfy public demand by compromising individual constitutional rights,� attorney Kelsi Corkran said Monday.

The Biden administration charted something of a middle path between the city and the unhoused plaintiffs. Kneedler, the deputy solicitor general, told the court that anti-camping laws are unconstitutional when they target people who have no access to indoor shelter.

“By prohibiting sleeping, the city is basically saying you cannot live in Grants Pass. It’s the equivalent of banishment,� Kneedler said.

But he urged the justices to return the case to the lower courts to ensure that the city’s laws are not blocked across the board. Such bans should still be allowable, he said, if an investigation shows that a given person does in fact have access to shelter.

Gorsuch and other justices also raised the possibility that other aspects of state or federal law could help sort through the issue, potentially without setting sweeping new legal precedent.

The question is an urgent one in the West, where a cross-section of Democratic and Republican officials contend that the 9th Circuit’s rulings on camping bans make it difficult for them to manage encampments. The appeals court has jurisdiction over nine states in the West.

Advocacy groups, on the other hand, argued that allowing cities to punish people who need a place to sleep will criminalize homelessness and ultimately make the crisis worse as the cost of housing increases.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Supreme Court Monday morning to advocate for more affordable housing, holding silver thermal blankets and signs like “housing not handcuffs.�

Homelessness in the United States last year to its highest reported level, as and a decline in coronavirus pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more people.

More than 650,000 people are estimated to be homeless, the most since the country began using the yearly Point-in-Time count in 2007. Nearly half of them sleep outside. Older adults, LGBTQ+ people and people of color are disproportionately affected, advocates said.

In Oregon, a lack of mental health and addiction resources has also helped fuel the crisis. The state has some of the highest rates of homelessness and drug addiction in the nation, and ranks near the bottom in access to treatment, federal data shows.

The court is expected to decide the case by the end of June.