Can criminalizing homelessness help? [View all]

[True Dough]

It doesn't seem to make sense, but more and more cities are doing it.

There’s nothing shocking, really, about Houston’s new law making it easier for homeless people to be arrested simply for being homeless.

Not when over 100 American cities have effectively criminalized everyday life for the homeless, making crimes of things from sleeping outside to brushing teeth in public. Even as cities become more socially conscious about LGBTQ rights and drug policies, they’ve become less tolerant of their neediest inhabitants and more comfortable with cops and the justice system sweeping up the human trash, as it were.

City-wide bans on public camping (PDF) have increased by 69 percent throughout the United States. What used to be seen as an annoyance is now prohibited, forcing fines or jail time on those who certainly can’t afford it. The only nationwide nonprofit devoted to studying this, the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, has been tracking these changes since 2006. Their findings? There are a scary number of laws passed that ironically make it costly to be homeless.

For example, in 33 of the 100 U.S. cities they studied, it’s illegal to publicly camp. In 18, it’s illegal to sleep in public. Panhandling is illegal in 27 cities. In 39 cities, it’s illegal to live in vehicles. For extreme sports junkies (like Yosemite climbers who try to live in their cars), this is an inconvenience. For the homeless, it leaves no alternatives, especially if shelters are too far, too full, or too violent (a common problem). For some people, the choice might be between living in a car or sleeping outside—but what if both are criminalized?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/04/30/the-laws-cities-use-to-make-homelessness-a-crime