Did you know that it’s against the law in more than 50 U.S. cities to give food to a homeless person?
That nearly half of our cities prohibit people from sleeping in cars (according to a report by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty)? And that more than half of the nation’s cities make it a crime to sit or lie down in certain public spaces?
Did you know that it’s against the law in more than 50 U.S. cities to give food to a homeless person?
That nearly half of our cities prohibit people from sleeping in cars (according to a report by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty)? And that more than half of the nation’s cities make it a crime to sit or lie down in certain public spaces?
Criminalizing homelessness — finding legal ways to get rid of the people who have no place to go — is all the rage. My family’s local D.C. library has the kind of metal cage you see at airports, where you measure your bag to see whether it qualifies as a carry-on. To enter the library, your bag has to be small enough to fit in there.
And, yes, many of the homeless folks who use the library as a daytime shelter are lugging all their possessions in huge bags that no airline would accept. Gone.
At storage facilities across the region — where many homeless people are able to rent lockers to stash their belongings — they are kicked out if they have exceeded the limit of hours they’re allowed to spend at their storage unit. Gone.
Take a look at the design of benches in parks, airports and museums. See the railings that make it impossible to lie down? Or the decorative spikes screwed into building ledges to make it impossible to sit? Gone.
Here is where we have to ask ourselves: Why?
What harm are these people doing? Are they really taking up all the empty seats at the airport? Are they checking out too many books at the library? Are they using up too much air at storage facilities?
Not really. It’s all about quality of life. Ours. We’re making their human acts illegal because they make us uncomfortable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...fd01a4-8188-11e5-9afb-0c971f713d0c_story.html
That nearly half of our cities prohibit people from sleeping in cars (according to a report by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty)? And that more than half of the nation’s cities make it a crime to sit or lie down in certain public spaces?
Did you know that it’s against the law in more than 50 U.S. cities to give food to a homeless person?
That nearly half of our cities prohibit people from sleeping in cars (according to a report by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty)? And that more than half of the nation’s cities make it a crime to sit or lie down in certain public spaces?
Criminalizing homelessness — finding legal ways to get rid of the people who have no place to go — is all the rage. My family’s local D.C. library has the kind of metal cage you see at airports, where you measure your bag to see whether it qualifies as a carry-on. To enter the library, your bag has to be small enough to fit in there.
And, yes, many of the homeless folks who use the library as a daytime shelter are lugging all their possessions in huge bags that no airline would accept. Gone.
At storage facilities across the region — where many homeless people are able to rent lockers to stash their belongings — they are kicked out if they have exceeded the limit of hours they’re allowed to spend at their storage unit. Gone.
Take a look at the design of benches in parks, airports and museums. See the railings that make it impossible to lie down? Or the decorative spikes screwed into building ledges to make it impossible to sit? Gone.
Here is where we have to ask ourselves: Why?
What harm are these people doing? Are they really taking up all the empty seats at the airport? Are they checking out too many books at the library? Are they using up too much air at storage facilities?
Not really. It’s all about quality of life. Ours. We’re making their human acts illegal because they make us uncomfortable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...fd01a4-8188-11e5-9afb-0c971f713d0c_story.html
