L.A. asks high court to overturn ruling on homeless’ belongings

Cit­ing an im­me­di­ate pub­lic health threat, the city of Los Angeles asked the U.S. Su­preme Court to over­turn a lower-court rul­ing pre­vent­ing the ran­dom seizure and de­struc­tion of be­long­ings that home­less people leave tem­por­ar­ily un­at­ten­ded on pub­lic side­walks.

If the court takes up the mat­ter, the case could have broad im­plic­a­tions for cit­ies na­tion­wide grap­pling with how to keep streets clean and safe while re­spect­ing the prop­erty rights of those who live there.