A report on the criminalization of homelessness was released on Wednesday, January 11, 2006 in the law offices of Covington and Burling in Washington D.C. The report was prepared by the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP). The report is called “A Dream Denied: The Criminalizaton of Homelessness in U.S. Cities”. The report cites the 20 meanest cities in the U.S. and bases this rating on ordinances and laws the mean city imposes against homeless people for performing life-sustaining acts in public spaces. In addition to the 20 meanest cities, the report discusses 75 other cities imposing constitutionally questionable policies on the homeless. Washington, D.C. was not one of the 20 meanest cities, but it was on the list of cities that need to improve their approach to the issue of homelessness. The report can be found at: nationalhomeless.org/publications/crimreport/index.html There are no anti-loitering laws in DC. These laws were declared unconstitutional in D.C Superior Court in 1968. There is one Drop-in center. It runs from early morning until 3:30 pm in a church in downtown DC. Homeless people can get a shower, clean up, and get a meal there. This drop-in center serves about a hundred people a day. The population living in the streets in D.C. is approximately a thousand. There are many types of “mean” laws applied to homeless people. Some prevent feeding the homeless where they congregate. DC police often impose this type of law on those who feed homeless people in Dupont Circle. When successfully applied, this law imposes a fine and possible jail time for a violation for feeding the homeless. When a city doesn’t offer minimal care to its most vulnerable residents, that city is not doing the minimum a government should do to care for its people. Many among the homeless population in this country are U.S military veterans. Sadly, the veteran homeless population grows with more people returning from Iraq. Human services officials in cities that have laws and ordinances on the books which adversely affect the quality of life of their homeless population should read the report to see what simple programs can be implemented to ease the unnecessary burden that is put on the criminal justice system for criminalizing life-sustaining activities of the homeless. Jailing is a lot more costly than sheltering.
In the UK we have gypsies which are considered a race in their own right who never settle in one place and never follow our civilisation. Under the laws above all of them would be charged with an offence. Having said that most gypsies are theiving, violent, nasty people anyway so whatever. As for homeless people they used to lock people up at the start of the 20th century in work houses where people could work in really bad conditions for a slice of moldy bread and some dirty water. Looks like the US is going back to that system. Homeless people aren't criminals and should not be treated as such and any of us could find ourselves homeless at some point in time.
