‘To some people, the Land of the Free doesn’t always seem so free. And America the Beautiful doesn’t look so pretty.’
This is the viewpoint of two Washington-based groups — the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP), and the National Coalition for the Homeless who have have targeted the country’s mingiest municipalities, in a ‘Homes Not Handcuffs’ report on Urban Planning.
The Top 10 Meanest U.S. Cities are: 1. Los Angeles, 2. St Petersburg, Florida, 3. Orlando, Florida, 4. Atlanta, 5. Gainesville, Florida, 6. Kalamazoo, Michigan, 7. San Francisco 8. Honolulu, 9. Bradenton, Florida, 10. Berkeley, California.
The survey shows ‘an increase in the trend in cities around the country to criminalise homelessness,’ said NLCHP Executive Director Maria Foscarinis, whose group has monitored the issue since early ’90s.
In the past three years, there has been a rise in laws that directly affect homeless people — an 11 per cent increase in anti-loitering laws and a 7 per cent rise in regulations that ban camping in certain public spaces.
The meanest cities, are cracking down on people for ‘living in public places and for begging and eating and for seeking assistance in public places. Some cities also punish organisations and people who are trying to help by offering food to poor people in public places.’
In other words Foscarinis says: ‘ “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses” (as it says on the Statue of Liberty), just make sure they don’t huddle and mass in public places.’
Due to the current economic and foreclosure crises, the housing and homelessness crisis in the United States has worsened.
By some estimates, more than 311,000 tenants nationwide have been evicted from homes this year after lenders took over the properties – 38 per cent of foreclosures involve rental properties, affecting at least 168,000 households.
As more people fall into homelessness, local service providers are seeing an increase in demand for services.
In Denver, nearly 30 per cent of the homeless population is newly homeless. The Denver Rescue Mission has reported a 10 per cent increase in its services.
The State of Massachusetts reports that the number of families living in shelters has risen by 33 per cent in the past year.
In Atlanta, Georgia, the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless reports that 30 per cent of all people coming into the Day Services Center daily are newly homeless.
In Concord, New Hampshire, the food pantry at First Congregational Church serves about 4,000 meals to over 800 people each month, around double the rate from 2007.
Of the 25 cities surveyed by the US Conference of Mayors for its annual Hunger and Homelessness Report, 19 reported an increase in homelessness in 2008 of an average 12 per cent increase.
The lack of available shelter space leaves many homeless persons with no choice but to struggle to survive on city streets.
Even though most cities do not provide enough affordable housing, shelter space, and food to meet the need, many cities use the criminal justice system to punish people living on the street for doing things that they need to do to survive.
For instance Los Angeles has dedicated an additional 50 officers to Skid Row to ‘protect’ its residents and remove a significant criminal element that historically hinders efforts to provide services to the homeless.
According to a 2007 study by the University of California, Los Angeles, the $6 million that the city was spending on the Safer City Initiative was more than the $5.7 million it was spending for homeless services.
‘Advocates found that during an 11-month period, 24 people were arrested 201 times, with an estimated cost of $3.6 million for use of police, the jail system, prosecutors, public defenders and the courts.
‘Advocates asserted that the money could have instead provided supportive housing for 225 people,’ the report states.
Such measures often prohibit activities such as sleeping/camping, eating, sitting, and/or begging in public spaces and include criminal penalties for violation of these laws.
Some cities have even enacted food sharing restrictions that punish groups and individuals for serving homeless people.
Many of these measures appear to have the purpose of moving homeless people out of sight, or even out of a given city.
As criminalisation measures can be counterproductive in many ways, the US Congress recently passed and the President signed legislation, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009, which requires the federal Interagency Council on Homelessness to devise constructive alternatives to criminalisation measures that can be used by cities around the country.
Criminalisation measures also raise constitutional questions, and many of them violate the civil rights of homeless persons.
• When a city passes a law that places too many restrictions on begging, such restrictions may raise free speech concerns as courts have found begging to be protected speech under the First Amendment.
• When a city destroys homeless persons’ belongings, such actions may violate the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
• When a city enforces a law that imposes criminal penalties on a homeless person for engaging in necessary life activities such as sleeping in public, such a law could violate that person’s Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment if the person has nowhere else to perform the activity.
• When a city passes a law that does not give people sufficient notice of what types of conduct it prohibits, or allows for arbitrary enforcement by law enforcement officials, such a law can be determined to be overly vague in violation of the Constitution.
Courts have found certain loitering and vagrancy laws to be unconstitutionally vague.
In addition to violating domestic law, criminalisation measures can also violate international human rights law.
While many cities engage in practices that exacerbate the problem of homelessness by criminalising it, some cities around the country have pursued more constructive approaches:
• Daytona Beach, Florida
In order to reduce the need for begging, a coalition of service providers, business groups, and the City of Daytona Beach began a program that provides homeless participants with jobs and housing.
While in the Downtown Street Team program, participants are hired to clean up downtown Daytona Beach and are provided initially with shelter and subsequently with transitional housing. A number of participants have moved on from the program to other full-time jobs and housing.
• Cleveland, Ohio
Instead of passing a law to restrict groups that share food with homeless persons, the City of Cleveland has contracted with the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless to coordinate outreach agencies and food sharing groups to prevent duplication of food provision, to create a more orderly food sharing system, and to provide an indoor food sharing site to groups who wish to use it.
• Portland, Oregon.
As part of its 10-year plan, Portland began ‘A Key Not a Card,’ where outreach workers from five different service providers are able to immediately offer people living on the street permanent housing rather than just a business card.
From the programme’s inception in 2005 through spring 2009, 936 individuals in 451 households have been housed through the program, including 216 households placed directly from the street providers, and advocates for solutions to prevent and end homelessness.
