Homelessness Law Blog

In late April, I  accepted a development & communications summer internship at the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. While I found the prospect of working in Washington D.C. very exciting, I was not sure what to expect. I was looking for experience with an advocacy or non-profit organization, so the Law Center seemed like a great fit for me. I had devoted the past year of college extra-curriculars to a club that focused on global inequalities. We had hosted a modest forum on homelessness in Alachua County, Florida, where I am a resident.

I anticipated that my internship would expose me to non-profit business practices and office skills. I am happy to say that my knowledge in these areas were most certainly improved. However, I gained so much more than simple filing skills. I gained perspective. I gained the ability to look at a problem, a truly complex problem like homelessness, and think critically about solutions. Homelessness has never affected me personally. I have led an extremely blessed life, and while I have stresses, worrying about the roof over my head has never been one of them. Unfortunately, I believe this has made me blind to issues of homelessness. (more…)

The Law Center applauds three County Commissioners from Charlotte County, Florida, for voting against a proposed anti-lodging ordinance yesterday that would have further marginalized the County’s homeless population.  The anti-lodging ordinance would have prohibited homeless persons from sleeping outside in public spaces anywhere in the county. In a time when these kinds of measures seem to be cropping up all around the country, the rejection of this law is something to celebrate.

The Law Center was part of a coalition of groups, including the Charlotte County Homeless Coalition and the National Coalition for the Homeless, that successfully advocated against the proposed law.

Cities truly need to wake up to the reality of the counterproductive nature of these laws.  Not only do they frequently violate homeless people’s civil rights, but they do nothing to further the goals of cities in getting people off of the street.

No one thinks it is a good idea for human beings to have to live on the streets or in places not meant for human habitation.  But, cycling people in and out of jail and back to the streets does nothing to help them move out of homelessness.  In fact, arresting or citing homeless people under these types of measures only perpetuates their homelessness, as obtaining housing and employment can be more difficult once a person has a criminal record.

In this time of budget crises around the country, communities need to consider the costs of their actions and use their resources more intelligently. According to a nine-city survey of shelter, housing, and jail costs, jail costs are 2 to 3 times higher than providing housing.

While the trend toward criminalizing homelessness has been ongoing for the past couple of decades, decisions like the one yesterday in Charlotte County provide a ray of hope. Let’s hope that more cities will follow their lead in rejecting these very counterproductive measures.

-Tulin Ozdeger, Civil Rights Program Director

Photo Credit: robinsan

The following is a letter from Board Member G.W. Rolle to St. Petersburg, Florida’s Mayor Bill Foster regarding the city’s recent ban on street solicitations and a letter reaching out to the city’s Homeless Leadership Network. To read the back story, see Mr. Rolle’s previous post.

Dear Mayor Foster,

My name is Gregory Rolle. Most people call me “G.W.”, and you may as well.

The marginalization and the criminalization of the homeless and near homeless is a disgrace and a blight on our city. Housing, Mayor Foster, is a basic human right. Affordable housing is intrinsic in that formula.

Laws that make people criminals by their very definition are laws that criminalize and marginalize that particular definitive group. You see, sir, the number one reason that people are homeless is that they lack housing. Most ne’er do wells, thieves, drug addicts, alcoholics, petty criminals, and prostitutes live inside. The small amount of people who live outside do so because they can either not afford or not negotiate living inside. No one wants to be homeless. When homeless people do get jobs and lift themselves off the street through meager means, such as the sale of the St. Petersburg Times, please tell me how it serves society or St. Petersburg to nix their earning potential and render them again street homeless, by passing laws and ordinances which criminalize certain aspects of that homelessness. (more…)

Most days, when it isn’t sweltering hot, my co-workers and I head to the park near the Law Center to enjoy lunch together.  We spread out our blanket and trade snacks and stories without giving a thought to the privilege we have to do so.  Around the country the very act of sitting and staying awhile in the park, or sharing a meal, can lead to expensive fines and, possibly, time in jail.

In our country, one known for both great abundance and great waste, the simple act of sharing food with someone experiencing homelessness has become a crime.  Some cities impose restrictions such as arbitrary numbers of people that can be served a meal in a park or on which days groups can do so.

How can a city expect a group to decide which four days of the year they want to show compassion and use their resources to provide another human being the basic necessity of food?  How can anyone restrict or penalize someone for providing another the nourishment they need to survive?  It is not only being done, but is a growing trend.

Research has shown that some cities fear that providing food to homeless men and women in their city will enable those individuals to remain homeless, or that local businesses will be affected negatively by homeless peoples’ presence.

What cities should fear is that they have stopped looking at people experiencing homelessness as people.  They are daughters, sons, mothers, fathers and friends that do not have somewhere to live.  They live each day with uncertainty about their safety, and where their next meal might come from.  Cities must work collaboratively with service providers to meet food and shelter needs in their communities.

Check out the Law Center’s new report, A Place at the Table, on food sharing restrictions and the innovative alternatives to restrictions that are being implemented around the country to meet hunger needs.

-Sarah Shubitowski, Hunger Fellow

Photo credit: Leroy Skalstad, formerly homeless veteran

On a lazy September day in 1957, Pete Seeger took up a twelve-string guitar at the Highlander Folk School in southern Tennessee.  The song he performed, “We Shall Overcome,” was  old hat for him by then.  But a young preacher in attendance was hearing it for the first time.   The next day, as he crossed the border into Kentucky, Dr. Martin Luther King hummed the tune from a backseat, and remarked: “That song really sticks with you, doesn’t it?”

There’s little in the human experience that art cannot digest. Art clarifies what cognition alone cannot. And when it reflects not just individual experiences, but collective pains and aspirations, its power to unite people is unparalleled. While King’s and Seeger’s childhoods were wildly divergent, the civil rights movement subsumed them both around one human truth: we are all equal, and we have a responsibility to one another.

Homelessness, like segregation, is a blight on our conscience; it’s a monument to apathy, revealing a systemic failure to honor our most basic obligations. Bruce Springsteen once said that he seeks in his music to “measure the distance between the American promise and the American reality.” (more…)

Click the image above to watch “Deaf”

They say “from the mouths of babes comes the truth,” and today I was blown away by the brilliance of youth.  The LA County Commission on Human Relations has brought together a group of youth with record producers and Grammy award winning artists to write songs with a positive message, and they have formed a group called “The Bricks.”  Moved by the stories of homeless persons being burned alive, two of the youth, Maria Tuadi and Tevin Douglas composed “Deaf,” a touching song that humanizes all-too-often dehumanized victims of such violence against homeless persons.  They performed this song today for an audience of human rights activists, and more than just my eyes teared up at the refrain calling our attention to “silent cries at night.”

This song comes at a critical time in California for taking steps to help protect homeless persons from violence.  Following the lead of Maryland and the District of Columbia, California’s Assembly just passed AB 2706 which would add homeless persons to the list of protected groups under hate crimes laws.  This is a sign of the growing awareness of violence against homeless persons, but unfortunately that awareness comes as these cases increase in number and severity. In just the past few weeks, a homeless man in Virginia barely survived being set on fire, a disabled homeless man in South Carolina was beaten to death, and a homeless man in Michigan was shot in the face with a paintball gun and lost an eye.

California’s senators need to hear from constituents that no person deserves to be treated as less than human, and to pass AB 2706.  And Californians and all Americans need to hear this song and be touched by the brilliance of youth.

-Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director

This guest post comes to us from Board Member G.W. Rolle who works with Pinellas County Coalition for the Homeless in Florida.

Over a week ago now, the St. Petersburg City Council passed an ordinance outlawing all roadside solicitation.  The ordinance was passed with a unanimous vote, and has been met with praise from several council members and area residents alike.  Unfortunately, few seem to realize the far-reaching effects this law would have on the St. Petersburg population.  The language of the ordinance does not distinguish types of solicitation, and would therefore outlaw the selling of newspapers at traffic intersections or even the fire department’s annual fundraising for muscular dystrophy.

Although the ordinance stems from a concern for public safety, there are many people that stand to be harmed by this ordinance.  Dozens of homeless people and community members will lose important income that comes from the sale of street newspapers. The St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune have spoken out against the ordinance. Times Publishing, the St. Petersburg Times’ parent company, has filed a lawsuit saying the ordinance violates freedom of speech.

The ordinance amounts to yet another instance of the criminalization of homelessness – where street vendors (often homeless) are punished for carrying out behaviors necessitated by their economic situations – and the implications are far reaching.

If council members stopped thinking of homelessness as a crime, they could begin looking for solutions to the problem, such as affordable housing.  City councils should embrace ordinances that promote constructive engagement and dismiss those ordinances that merely dismiss the homeless. Housing is a human right. But when housing is not available, the solution is not to punish those who are without it.

Photo Credit: dlkinney

Earlier this month, Florida became the fourth jurisdiction in the United States to add homeless people as a protected class to its hate crimes statute.  In prior years, Maine, Maryland, and the District of Columbia have all added homeless people as a protected class to their hate crimes statutes.  Each of these statutes imposes enhanced penalties upon perpetrators who attack a person because he or she is homeless.  Other states, such as Rhode Island and Ohio are considering similar measures, while California is considering a bill that would allow homeless victims to sue their attackers for additional damages.

This growing effort to provide protection for homeless individuals has been spurred by the increasing number of attacks against them over the past decade.  In its 2008 hate crimes report, the National Coalition for the Homeless documented 106 attacks against homeless people, 27 of which resulted in death.  The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty has worked closely with the National Coalition for the Homeless on the state and federal level to bring attention to the issue and provide protection for homeless people.  We are glad to see our efforts are starting to pay off.

The attacks that have been documented have been truly horrendous, including homeless people being set on fire.  While it is somewhat baffling — and quite frankly deeply disturbing — to think why and how some members of our society can be so violently cruel against another group of people, it may not be that surprising.  The message that homeless people are not to be viewed as fully human is frequently sent out to the public, not just by private citizens but by our own governments.  Cities around the country routinely target homeless people through laws that essentially make it a crime to be homeless.  These laws include anti-camping, anti-panhandling, anti-sitting, and even laws that make it difficult to share food with homeless people.  Many times, the purpose of these measures is to move homeless neighbors out of sight, as though they are second or third class citizens.  It is no wonder that private actors feel emboldened in expressing their bias against homeless individuals.  If the government is treating homeless people so badly, why can’t they?

That is why these steps that states are taking to include homeless people as a protected class are so important.  They can serve as countermeasures to the constant assaults on homeless people.  When our state legislators pass these laws they are sending a message to the public that homeless people are not second class citizens, and attacks against them will not be tolerated.  It is our hope and goal at the Law Center that this message is heard loud and clear.

-Tulin Ozdeger, Civil Rights Program Director

Late last week, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty joined other civil and human rights organizations in the Arizona boycott, pulling out of a major public interest law conference planned in Phoenix this week for which we had organized a panel. The theme of the conference  is “Equal Justice.” The Arizona law is anything but.

The law is about much more that immigrants rights, and the links to homelessness and poverty are pretty direct. To learn more, check out my blog on The Huffington Post today.

-Maria Foscarinis, Executive Director

Two weeks ago, I did a web training on human rights and homelessness for a small group of advocates in Salt Lake City, Utah at the request of Bill Tibbits, from Crossroads Urban Center.  The training focused on issues of the criminalization of homelessness, where homeless people are ticketed for actions that the rest us take for granted – like sleeping, sitting, or eating – because they are forced to do so in public places.

After the training, Bill and his allies decided to conduct a “sleep-in” in a public park.  They got great press coverage, emphasizing the human rights perspective that sleeping is a necessity of life, and when a person doesn’t have a private place to do that, to deny them the ability to sleep is to deny their right to live as a human being. Sleeping in the park is no one’s idea of a permanent solution, but until we have enough affordable housing available for all, cities should not violate the human rights of homeless persons just because they have nowhere else to go.

Bill sent me this email on Friday: “Today the Chief of Police invited me to a press conference where he thanked me for drawing his attention to this issue, stated that he intended to halt enforcement of the City’s anti-camping ordinance and that he planned to ask the Council to make some revisions to the ordinances.”

One couldn’t ask for a clearer example of the power of human rights as a tool to re-frame the public debate around issues of housing and homelessness: from training to stopping enforcement of a law that violates human rights in two weeks! While we won’t win most of our struggles quite as quickly, such victories emphasize the potential we can hope for, as well as the need to continue to share human rights tools with our allies.

Congratulations again to Bill and his colleagues. We look forward to helping you keep the momentum going forward!

-Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director