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I because homeless because of the government.
The government seized my homes because of messy
yard crimes. I committed the horrible crime of not mowing
my lawn or trimming my palm trees quick enough to
make the mess yard cops happy and the government
ended up seizing my homes for messy yard crimes
I was accused of.
I was never arrested nor was I ever put on trial. The government made all my messy yard crimes civil, so they could seize my homes with out any of messy legal precautions given to people charged with crimes. Column: Don't treat America's homeless as criminals By Arjun Sethi By Reed Saxon, AP Braving America without a home has always been hard. Now it's becoming a crime. A recent survey of 234 cities by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty found that on nearly every front, municipalities are cracking down on the homeless: 24% prohibit begging, 22% prohibit loitering and 16% say it's illegal to sleep in public places. On any given night, about 636,000 Americans are homeless. While this number has negligibly declined over the past few years, it might soon rise. Data on homelessness lag, and recent evidence suggests that the effects of the economic downturn on the homeless are intensifying. Among the homeless are youth, veterans, victims of domestic violence and families with young children. An estimated 40% are unsheltered. For these individuals, begging, loitering and sleeping outside is not a choice, it is a necessity. Just ask Lawrence Lee Smith. Afflicted with degenerative joint disease in his hip and knee, and unable to afford housing, Smith slept in a tent near the Boise River in Idaho. His crime? Violating the city's anti-camping law. His sentence? Ninety days in jail. Criminalizing these life-sustaining activities forces the homeless to make an unconscionable choice: break the law or relocate. Blame economy, not victims It's also bad public policy. Homelessness has risen in 24 states and Washington, D.C., since the recession because real wages and public assistance have not kept pace with rising health care and housing costs. Penalizing the losers in this economy won't solve the problem. Nor will it make us safer. The homeless are among America's most vulnerable. From 1999 through 2010, the homeless faced 1,184 acts of reported violence resulting in 312 deaths, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. These acts included beatings and rapes. In some states, the homeless are now a protected class under state hate crime statutes. Making it a crime to be homeless has pernicious long-term effects. It could render the homeless ineligible for public housing because of draconian regulations, impede access to social services and reduce job prospects because of background checks. Thirty-eight states, for example, let employers ask about arrests when hiring. Jail not fiscally wise Jailing the homeless isn't even fiscally sound. One study shows cities spend $87 per day to jail a person, compared with $28 for shelter. The home is a sacred place in America. It is protected in the Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has cited the privacy of the home in striking down state laws that criminalize intimate sexual preferences and the use of contraceptives. Shepherding the homeless to the outskirts of cities and overcrowded prisons reveals something troubling about America's pathos. Just as our institutions have fallen into decadence, so too have our social mores and our capacity to empathize with the less fortunate. Too often we would rather render the homeless invisible, repudiate them as mentally ill or criminal, than confront them for what they represent: the lingering inequities that gnaw at American democracy. Homelessness isn't intractable. Take Fairfax County, Va. Through a hodgepodge of initiatives, including rental assistance, maintaining affordable housing and creating a homelessness office to coordinate efforts among government agencies, non-profits and faith communities, my hometown has reduced homelessness by 16% and family homelessness by 19% since 2008. Other locales, too, have rejected expediency and the temptation to disavow America's most vulnerable. They should be lauded. In protecting the downtrodden, they are safeguarding democracy, too. Arjun Sethi is an attorney in Washington, D.C. |