This man fought for your country
As of last week, California became the fourth state to introduce legislation that hopes to curb the
criminalization of the homeless.
"It's time to address poverty, mental health and the plight of the homeless head-on as a social issue and not a criminal issue," State Sen. Carol Liu, D-LA Cañada Flintridge, said in the release. "Citing homeless people for resting in a public space can lead to their rejection for jobs, education loans and housing, further denying them a pathway out of poverty."
Liu introduced Right to Rest Act, SB 608, in the state Senate on Friday. Similar bills, widely referred to as a “Homeless Bill of Rights,” have been introduced by state legislators in Colorado, Oregon and Hawaii.
Since the Supreme Court deemed
vagrancy laws unconstitutional in 1972, states have been slowly but surely reintroducing laws that criminalize the homeless and the mentally ill. The best part of these programs are that they accomplish
none of the things they claim they will accomplish:
Criminalization measures waste limited state and local resources. Rather than addressing the causes of homelessness and helping people escape life on the streets, criminalization “creates a costly revolving door that circulates individuals experiencing homelessness from the street to the criminal justice system and back.” A growing body of research comparing the cost of homelessness to the cost of providing housing to homeless people consistently shows that housing, rather than jailing, homeless people is the much more successful and cost-effective option. [...]
Criminalization measures do nothing to address the underlying causes of homelessness and, instead, only worsen the problem. Misusing police power to arrest homeless people is only a temporary intervention, as most people are arrested and incarcerated for short periods of time. Ultimately, arrested homeless people return to their communities, still with nowhere to live and now laden with financial obligations, such as court fees, that they cannot pay. Moreover, criminal convictions–even for minor crimes–can create barriers to obtaining critical public benefits, employment, or housing, thus making homelessness more difficult to escape.
The homeless problem has only been exacerbated with
deinstitutionalization, cutting social programs, and more specifically, cutting
affordable housing.
Besides stupid ideas concerning imaginary bootstraps the two main problems are that 1) homeless people have a weak political place in our society, and 2) most people are profoundly embarrassed and over-worked themselves. How do I explain it to my kids?
I'm not exactly sure how to explain it to my 3-year-old son, since our attitude towards those down on their luck is pretty reprehensible. However, throwing people in jail for being destitute seems to fall only in the category of reprehensible. This bill tries to stop some of the more egregious aspects of criminalization.
The bill would assert the right to use public spaces, to vote, to not have police or other authorities search their belongings without reasonable suspicion, to sleep in a legally parked car and to have access to restrooms and other hygiene facilities.
"Actions by state, county or private organizations shall not impede an individual's ability to maintain access to services essential to survival," the legislation reads.