Can we stop criminalizing homelessness yet?

[99th_Monkey]

A Growing Movement Is Fighting the Criminalization of Homelessness
By Alice Speri * October 6, 2014 * Vice News

Homeless people and their advocates across the United States are pushing back against cities' attempts to erase the problem of homelessness by criminalizing it, and demanding that their basic rights be recognized and protected.

As the national momentum grows around individual states' proposals for a "Homeless Bill of Rights," dozens of social justice and homeless advocacy groups in three states have united in the effort, surveying homeless people about their priorities and working to draft legislation they hope to put before lawmakers early next year.

"We want basic human rights, we want to be able to pee, we want to be able to sleep, we want to be able to sit down," Ray Lyall, a member of Denver Homeless Out Loud, one of the groups behind the initiative, told VICE News.

More US cities are cracking down on feeding the homeless. Read more here.

"Homeless people are almost always told to get up, to move along; they can't sleep, they can't sit," added Lyall, who is himself homeless. "They are trying to stop the sharing of food, there's a lot of the general public that comes out and hands food out, and they're trying to stop that. And we did a report on the availability of bathrooms here in Denver, and there's absolutely none that's open 24 hours."

Lyall says he is very optimistic a homeless bill of rights will eventually pass in Colorado, and has been doing outreach with Denver's 11,000 homeless residents to build support for the initiative.

https://news.vice.com/article/a-growing-movement-is-fighting-the-criminalization-of-homelessness

[Kalidurga]

1. I think that basic shelter should be provided.

Even if it is something like a FEMA camp. It's completely doable and the fact that it's not done shows just how little society cares for people who need help the most.

[99th_Monkey]

2. This is what really pisses me off. There is NO fiscal excuse for cruelty to homeless peeps

Here's What Happened When One City Gave Homeless People Shelter Instead of Throwing Them in Jail
While many cities continue to criminalize the homeless population, one city tried giving them homes.

Kilee Lowe was sitting in a park when cops picked her up and booked her into jail overnight.

After she got out the next morning, she returned to the park. The same officer who had thrown her into a cell not 24 hours before booked her again. It was back to jail for Kilee.

Kilee has been cycling in and out of the criminal justice system for years. After three and a half years in federal prison, she’s been homeless for a little over a year now.

“Just because I don’t have a credit card in my pocket,” she says, “does not make me a criminal.”

~snip~

Salt Lake City crunched the numbers. And the prescription was clear. The city was spending $20,000 per homeless resident per year – funding for policing, arrests, jail time, shelter, and emergency services. Homelessness was not going down. Instead, for $7,800 a year through a new program called Housing First, the city could provide a person with an apartment and case management services.

In 2005, the city was spending $40 million to address chronic homelessness. Several years after starting the Housing First program, in 2013, spending was down to $9.6 million.

And more importantly, chronic homelessness has dropped 72 percent.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/heres-what-happened-when-one-city-gave-homeless-people-shelter-instead-throwing-them

[Kalidurga]

3. After a few generations I am sure the savings would be even more

Fewer people would end up needing the services after getting back on their feet and their children might not experience homelessness and poverty after that.

[brer cat]

4. Amen, Kalidurga.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[UglyGreed]

6. Give them a

safe warm place to live that does not involve bars and guards.

[99th_Monkey]

10. +100! n/t

[JEB]

7. Criminalize mansions, gated componds and multiple houses.

[woo me with science]

8. Surely you jest.

Now, why would good capitalists want to do that?



Poor minorities are worthless to corporations on the street. In prison they can bring in $40,000/yr
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023368969

We heard about private prisons...but do you know of the private probation industry?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025380204

NYT: Probation Fees Rise, Firms Profit and the Poor Go to Jail
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002893040

No Safe Place: How Cities Are Making It Illegal to be Homeless
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101699724

Thrown in jail for being poor: the booming for-profit probation industry
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024603515

[99th_Monkey]

9. I've heard of "debtors prisons" too

but I learned in high school history class that they had been banned
for being so inhumane and cruel.

Yet, here we are again, huh?