Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?

[Robbien]

IT’S too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s. “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.”

In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually been intensifying as the recession generates ever more poverty. So concludes a new study from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which found that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with ticketing and arrests for more “neutral” infractions like jaywalking, littering or carrying an open container of alcohol.

The report lists America’s 10 “meanest” cities — the largest of which are Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Francisco — but new contestants are springing up every day. The City Council in Grand Junction, Colo., has been considering a ban on begging, and at the end of June, Tempe, Ariz., carried out a four-day crackdown on the indigent. How do you know when someone is indigent? As a Las Vegas statute puts it, “An indigent person is a person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive” public assistance.

much more . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09ehrenreich.html?_r=2&em=&pagewanted=all

[Mythsaje]

1. Ain't it grand that the powerful are looking out for us little folk?

I mean, sleeping under bridges and on the sidewalk is just so demeaning and dangerous. We should be sleeping in beds as is right and proper.

On edit: I read part of this article a few days ago. Now I'm reading the whole thing. The racism inherent in it is as disgusting as the "drug war," and, as someone who spent a good span of time effectively homeless, I know how that whole spiraling down the drain thing works. If you're lucky you've got a car. If you're even luckier you can pay your insurance and licensing fees. If not, well...

The thing about teenagers being arrested for not having ID--I wasn't aware that it was common for people under 16 to have photo ID anyway. I mean, if they're not New Yorkers, they might have a license at 16. But my 15 y.o. son doesn't have photo I.D. Good thing he's not poor, African-American, and living in NY city, eh?

[undeterred]

8. And where are homeless people supposed to go to the bathroom?

Change clothes? Take a shower? A homeless man drowned swimming in a nearby lake last week.

[Howard509]

2. "Progressive" cities and the poor

It's kind of strange how major cities that call themselves "progressive" have some of the most draconian policies against homeless and low income people. I used to live in Olympia, WA and it was absurd.

[WillParkinson]

3. It's always been a crime to be poor...

Where have you been? :sarcasm:

The poor are always the problem of someone else. They are always looked down on. Especially by those who have.

[wolfsbane]

4. I am so glad I'm not homeless anymore

I totally concur with everything said. I lost my home to foreclosure early in the recession and after spending a good six months, from Anchorage, AK (in the winter mind you) back to my native New Orleans, basically, completely indigent, I highly sympathize with the country's poor. In both cities, the odds were stacked heavily against someone who is forced to do without. From Anchorage, where, of the two shelters accessible by your average homeless man, policies require any indigent person who has not arranged a living situation within 90 days to spend 30 days, literally, on the streets, to New Orleans, where only one meal is served per day and shelter's boasting 3pm curfews make working a decent job nearly impossible, the "safety net" we provide the "losers" in our capitalist system is attrocious. Thankfully, I have family who cared enough, once I trekked the thousands of miles back to the south, to take me in and help me get back on my feet. However, many are not so lucky. People need to realize that the homeless become so for many reasons, from free choice, to mental illness, to disability and addiction. In any case, we need to recognize this growing problem and see to it thatthey are not made victim of a have and have not systems. They are not second class citizens, they are Americans like us. It disgusts me when I see, or even when I'm involved, the homeless rounded up on an assortment of trumped up charges and forced to endure the seizure of their freedom because of the state of their lives.

Why is it so easy, for so many, to overlook a wound this large when its right before their eyes...

[ejpoeta]

5. and it's almost impossible to get out of that hole once you are in it.

unless you have family who are willing to help you... you can't get a job without an address... and how are you going to get a job if you look like a homeless person who can't bathe and don't have access to clean clothes.... and if you can't get a job, how are you going to get a place to live. and how many of us are an illness or a job loss away from living in our car or on the street!!!

i am glad that you got back on your feet.

[Wednesdays]

6. K&R

:kick:

[elleng]

7. "The law,

in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in
the streets, and to steal bread." (from The Red Lily, 1894)

Anatole France

[bemildred]

9. Well, it certainly makes you a suspect. nt

[Gman2]

10. Every time I hear some cocksucker{sorry}, that calls all the weak, the problem

I have de3termined to ruthloessly embarrass them publically. And if they object, I will drop them where they stood. Fuck them. And I mean it.