Homelessness Is the Foe, Not the Homeless : Criminalizing street dwellers won’t cure the problem; we need solutions that address the cause.
Over the past two years, actions by local governments directed against homeless people have risen sharply. A 16-city study released last week by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty found that cities are increasingly passing and enforcing laws that criminalize conduct associated with homelessness, such as sleeping, begging and even sitting in public places. But passing laws against the homeless will not end homelessness.
In San Francisco, more than 3,000 citations have been given under the city’s new “Matrix Quality of Life” program. In a kind of domino effect in Southern California, eight municipalities passed anti-sleeping ordinances within 15 months of one another. In Cincinnati, city officials have removed the benches from a downtown park to deter homeless people from congregating. And in New York City, incoming Mayor Rudolph Giuliani plans to crack down on street washers of windshields.
Some recent media reports attribute these developments to a public backlash against homeless people. But a recent Business Week / Harris poll found that 81% of the American public would be willing to pay higher taxes specifically to increase government spending on homelessness.
Rather than reflecting widespread public opinion, repressive city measures are often knee-jerk reactions to political pressure from specific groups or quick-fix responses to legitimate concerns. The growing presence of homeless people on city sidewalks and in city parks is legitimate cause for frustration as well as concern. But public pressure to “do something” about homelessness cannot responsibly be satisfied by simply criminalizing activities that many homeless people have no choice but to engage in. All cities have laws against assault and other aggressive behavior. These laws can and should be enforced. But no one group of people should be singled out for enforcement.
In none of the cities surveyed in the Law Center study was shelter-bed capacity sufficient to meet the need; two of the cities did not have any shelter at all. In many cases, sleeping outdoors or begging is literally a last-resort, survival strategy. Indeed, some courts have recently held that penalizing such activities in that context is unconstitutional.
Building more shelters is not the answer. While they do provide emergency aid, shelters are a short-term Band-Aid measure that does nothing to address the underlying causes of homelessness. Indeed, the emergency-shelter response may further fuel public frustration by creating the illusion that real solutions are in place, when in fact they are not.
Real solutions must address the causes of homelessness by providing affordable housing, job training and jobs for those able to work and income assistance for those unable, health and mental-health care and substance-abuse treatment and affordable child care. This is an ambitious agenda but a necessary one if we are serious about ending homelessness in America.
Criminalizing the actions of the homeless fosters divisiveness and is subject to constitutional challenge. It is also a wasteful use of scarce resources: In Atlanta, a local group estimates that the city spends between $300,000 and $500,000 per year to incarcerate homeless people for sleeping and begging in public. In San Francisco, police spent 450 hours and $11,000 to arrest 15 people for begging.
Instead of attacking homeless people, cities should attack homelessness. Increasingly, some of them are. In the wake of a court ruling in Miami, Dade County passed a 1% meal tax specifically to fund aid to homeless residents, including not just shelter but also housing, job training and substance-abuse treatment.
In addition to working toward longer-term solutions, cities can also respond constructively to immediate concerns: Making public toilets available is more constructive than making urination in public a crime. Ensuring that day-labor pools--where many homeless people find work--meet basic standards is more constructive than criminalizing begging. Establishing community councils that bring together business groups, homeless people and service providers, and providing special training to police can create dialogue and build political consensus.
Cities and citizens should unite to persuade the federal government to be a partner in ending homelessness. We should join with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros to make addressing homelessness a No. 1 priority.
