Criminalizing Homelessness Wastes Resources, Risks Public Safety, and Contributes to Rising Housing Insecurity
Legislative forces are amping up their war on American homeless people, drafting countless laws that make it impossible for them to perform life-sustaining activities without violating criminal statutes. Read more to learn how these laws make communities less safe, not only for homeless people but also for housed people like you.
Anti-Camping Legislation Has Become Harsher and More Abundant While Yielding Negative Results
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s data, anti-camping ordinances increased by an astonishing 92% between 2006 and 2019, and with the skyrocketing rate of homeless criminalization came an onslaught of stricter sentencing. For example, since 2020, public camping has been classified as a felony in Tennessee.
With the horrific overturning of Grants Pass (a law that once made it illegal to arrest people for being homeless if there was an insufficient number of available shelter beds), many places are keener to enforce pieces of anti-homeless legislation. This can mean fines, fees, and even prison time for people enduring unsheltered homelessness. Have you ever wondered what it means for you?
New and Harsher Anti-Camping Laws Mean More Crime for Communities
In a previous discussion with Invisible People reporters, Eric Tars, who serves as Legal Director for the National Homelessness Law Center, noted that whenever the goal and focus of law enforcement are honed in on low-level offenses like criminalizing homelessness, the solve rate for violent crime plummets. This is because the resources that would have been used to combat violent offenses are redirected toward harassing non-violent “offenders” whose only perceived “crimes” are sitting, standing, walking, or sleeping outside on the streets.
With the police too busy shuffling homeless people from prison cells to street corners and back again, these cities become hot spots for physical aggressors. And this is only one way that homeless criminalization makes communities less safe.
Tars also mentioned that when anti-homeless laws increase, public perception of people enduring homelessness is even more damaging. Some will genuinely believe that unsheltered folks are criminals and might lash out at them vigilante-style, as we saw happen in the tragedy that claimed young Jordan Neely’s life. He died a brutal, avoidable death at the hands of a vigilante on a New York City Subway. The Big Apple has not quite been the same.
New Anti-Homeless Laws Stir Public Health Concerns
In case safety isn’t a top priority for you, consider, for a moment, the threat to public health posed by these laws. In a recent writeup published by MSN, KFF Health News’ Senior Correspondent Angela Hart revealed, “Politicians are responding to the visibility of homelessness by clearing encampments, but in doing so, they are thwarting efforts to stabilize people and make them healthier.”
According to Hart and other expert commentators, the strict enforcement of anti-camping policies severs connections made between unsheltered homeless people and street outreach teams.
As encampments are dismantled and personal belongings are destroyed, homeless people are losing medically necessary items like prescriptions, medical IDs, birth certificates, and bus passes, and they are missing doctor’s appointments as a direct result. This gives way not only to personal medical risks but also to a surge in public health concerns as people residing outside in spaces unfit for human habitation battle the elements, on top of physical and mental health conditions.
Medical experts concur that street outreach goals should include stabilization, which is an impossibility if homeless people continue to be pushed from place to place.
New Laws that Criminalize Homelessness Put a Huge Strain on Taxpayer Funding
Do you know that old playground that could use a new sliding board or the local library that hasn’t been remodeled in decades? Well, mismanaged funding spent on criminalizing homelessness takes taxpayer funding away from things like building better communities.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent spinning homelessness through the revolving door that is our criminal justice system. Yet, in the aftermath of homeless encampment clearings, permanent, supportive housing happens for approximately three out of every 1,000 evicted homeless persons. The rest usually wind up right back on the streets in a matter of days or weeks.
Essentially, this means your hard-earned tax dollars are going toward law enforcement and junk removal and the effort to harass and rob the poorest of the poor.
Last But Not Least, New Anti-Homeless Legislation Creates More Homelessness
There is an undeniable trend afoot. The more we move toward criminalizing homelessness and away from housing and services, the higher our rates of homelessness become. This is to be expected because vilifying people living on the streets does not address the leading cause of the homeless crisis, which is and has been for decades a lack of affordable housing. When we redirect public funding to address the symptom rather than the disease, so to speak, we wind up with policies that work against the people we are trying to protect, and this is destructive to everyone within our communities, housed or unhoused.
Talk To Your Legislators About Standing for the Human Right to Housing Today
Now that you understand the harms of recent and unjust legislation hurting homeless people and whole communities, take a moment to discuss your concerns with local legislators. To increase safety, preserve funding, and support public health, we must accept that everyone needs permanent, affordable housing.
