Rights of Homeless
Re “They Are Free to Die on Our Streets,” Commentary, Feb. 7: While David Grunwald and Carla Jacobs recognize that the LAPD has engaged in a pattern of harassment that has seriously threatened the homeless, they also fault the ACLU for putting a stop to that destructive campaign, implying that the ACLU does not care about the lives of the homeless, only about their liberty. Some of the chief champions of the ACLU’s case were people who provide services for the homeless--and they supported our legal effort because they witnessed the devastating effects of the LAPD’s campaign. It interfered with homeless people’s struggle to meet their basic life needs: shelter, food and medical treatment.
The basic needs Grunwald and Jacobs describe were what drove this case, a case in which the connection between life and liberty is particularly clear-cut. For homeless people, liberty and help are not in conflict. The ACLU believes that they must have both.
RAMONA RIPSTON
Executive Director
ACLU of Southern California
Los Angeles
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