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The political center has become a precarious place for lawmakers who want to embrace compromise. Extreme views from both ends of the political spectrum seem to dominate policies these days.
This same political tug-of-war is also occurring in the world of homelessness. While many cities around the country are passing anti-homelessness laws to push people experiencing homelessness out of their communities, one state is actually passing a law that gives people living on the streets the right to be there. Our country’s response to homelessness is dominated by extremes.
The state of Rhode Island is on the verge of passing a “Bill of Rights” for people who are homeless. The law would give people who are homeless the right to access public sidewalks, parks, and public buildings, and protect their right to keep their private belongings.
Sure, this is a compassionate response to people who not only struggle on our streets, but also must endure the threat of being legally cited for trying to find a safe place to sleep outside.
But is protecting people on the streets from legal citations really going to help them long term?
If you wander east of Los Angeles’ downtown business district, you’ll find yourself smack in middle of the city’s infamous Skid Row, home to thousands of people who call the streets home.
You might run into Jerome, a man who has been homeless for years. Employment is a foreign word to him, and abusing substances is his primary recreational activity. He camps, literally, on the sidewalk in front of a small toy factory with his belongings stacked three feet high.
Jerome is a fixture in this neighborhood because homeless advocates have successfully defended his legal right to be there, even though business owners have fought City Hall to get him to move along.
Sarah, on the other hand, lost her job a year ago because of the downturn in the economy. She spent six months unsuccessfully looking for work while using up her limited savings. She ended up sleeping in her Toyota Celica in a tiny neighborhood on L.A’s Westside, because it seemed like the safest place to go.
Unfortunately, her housed neighbors were not too happy that she was living in her vehicle near their homes, so Sarah was cited for illegally parking on the street overnight. After a few more citations were slapped on her windshield, the city towed away what remained of her dignity. She ended up sleeping in a park, which the city has recently also made illegal.
Ironically, the right to sleep, eat, and store possessions on the sidewalk gave Jerome the means to sustain an unhealthy existence, while Sarah struggled to keep her car and find a safe place to stay without the threat of law enforcement swooping down on her.
There needs to be a balance between criminalizing homelessness with ordinances that persecute people who are forced to live on the street, and giving those same people the right to do whatever they want without any consequences. We need to find the middle ground.
Jerome needs to transition out of his self-destructive lifestyle, while Sarah needs to be legally protected until she can find a path out of homelessness.
A Bill of Rights would help Sarah during her transition, but would merely enable Jerome.
A more powerful Bill of Rights for people who are homeless, however, would consist of one simple right: the right to housing. This does not mean the right to a condo, or the right to a luxury apartment…but the right to a safe place to call home.
This means giving people who have become homeless access to transitional housing if they just need a temporary “way station” until they can get back on their feet, or the right to a permanent housing unit if their disabilities limit their ability to make it on their own.
Let’s call it the Right to Housing Bill.
Photo From: Answers.com
4 Comments
You got it in one Joel John! IMO, a Homeless Bill Of Rights would do more to create, recognize and enable a permanent homeless underclass, rather than a way to end, solve, or diminish the problem of homelessness, and reduce and eliminate the number of people living 'on the street', (literally and figuratively).
100,000 Homes/Housing First has the right idea, "off the street THEN attack the underlying issues". In many cases, once the anxiety of the lack of a place to stay is lessened or relieved, half the battle of reintegration into society is won.
Hell, I'm homeless and I'd be overjoyed to have nothing more than a place only big enough to lie down in, with a door that locks and where I can leave my few meager possessions instead of carrying them with me always, electricity, and plumbing!
Keep up the insightful commentary, I often reprint your thoughts or links to them, in my blog;
HomeLessCide–Life on the Street, http://www.homelesscide.blogspot.com
Thanks for your advocacy and compassion on our behalf
Dave
Dave
SRO’s that take anyone on GR or low wage workers, high tolerance, don’t force them to be sober or taking meds but make the services available. And take people with felonies. _The LA City Counsel approved development in Hollywood yesterday
Mr. Roberts,
In your article, you call Rhode Island's new law "a compassionate response" to "protecting people on the streets from legal citations" when they are "trying to find a safe place to sleep outside."
However, the original vision for the bill was much more substantial than that.
The first draft of the Homeless Bill of Rights was actually born out of a critical, ethnographic study that my nonprofit organization conducted of the homeless provider system in Providence from October 2010 to May 2011. As principal investigator, I used covert participant observation to achieve full situational immersion by interacting with providers and accessing services as would a person experiencing homelessness.
The study entitled "Power in Homeless Shelter Staff-Client Interactions: Influence on Length of Stay" is published on the PATH program website.
Surprisingly, I experienced and observed client abuse by shelter staff and security personnel that meets the state’s legal definition, administrative neglect, and discrimination from the shelter's housing locators, external housing agencies, and potential employers. Our research shows that the administrative neglect and discrimination increased shelter stays by four to five months. We are in the final stages of determining if the abuse also led to longer shelter stays by demotivating clients.
Bottom line: increased stays increases costs, increases funding demands, and puts an undue burden on budgets that are already bursting at the seams.
I also discovered that there were no public advocacy or legislative efforts to prevent such maltreatment similar to those in place for other vulnerable populations in the state and across the country — namely, nursing home patients and residents in long term care facilities.
In response, I received the vision for, researched, drafted, and lobbied local advocates and elected officials for their support of an anti-abuse and anti-discrimination Homeless Bill of Rights. Our proposal was later adopted and adapted by local advocates to become the final anti-discrimination only bill that was signed into law.
My recent legal analysis published by JURIST examines the evidence-based need for and legally-based feasibility of passing the critical anti-abuse and anti-discrimination elements of my original proposed bill.
Your closing assertion is dead on: the most important element in "a more powerful Bill of Rights" is "the right to a safe place to call home." My original 25-point bill mandates that these vulnerable individuals have safe temporary shelter while seeking to secure a safe, permanent home.
As part of our New Civil Rights Movement: Equal Treatment for the Homeless campaign, I am working hard to ensure all 50 states enact comprehensive anti-abuse and anti-discrimination laws to protect these citizens not only on the streets, but also in the shelters and transitional living facilities.
While governments and organizations work their 10-year plans to end homelessness, it is irresponsible for leaders to allow these vulnerable individuals to be maltreated.
nice blog and its too important information and i really appreciate it.
Perth Plumbing.