A Homeless Shelter Is a Home, In Legal Terms

A homeless shelter is a person's home, and homeless citizens are entitled to the same privacy protection as those in our country who have housing, a Massachusetts court has ruled.

The case resulted from the prosecution of a 16-year-old boy based on evidence obtained by police during a search of the room he shared with his mother at the Roxbury Multi-Service Center Family House Shelter in March 2006. After the shelter director unlocked the door, the officers found a loaded Glock .40-caliber gun.

The boy was charged with delinquency, but a juvenile court judge threw out the evidence. Prosecutors appealed.

In finding that the search violated the rights of the shelter's occupants, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected the idea that residents of transitional housing have lesser rights to privacy.

"The room that the juvenile and his mother shared at the shelter was a transitional living space, but it was nonetheless their home," the court said, ruling against the prosecutors. Because they -- like any other Americans -- had a "reasonable expectation of privacy" in their home, it couldn't be searched without a warrant.

The Fourth Amendment provides that every person has the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures in his home. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that hotel patrons and boarding house tenants have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their rooms; even a guest who stays one night in a friend's home (with or without a key) has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his host's home.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Judith Cowin argued that shelter residents did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. "The shelter services a transient population. It makes available a temporary place to live off the streets. In return, and for obvious reasons, the shelter requires that its residents surrender a considerable degree of personal freedom," she wrote.

We can all agree that no teenage boys should have guns, but we should applaud the Massachusetts judges who recognized that approving this warrantless search would consign the homeless to second-class status. Our Constitution does not distinguish between rich and poor.

Photo credit: Mai Le