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Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 10:14 am Post subject: 20 meanest cities for homeless

Advocates say cities increasingly criminalize homeless people

By Michael E. Ross
Reporter
MSNBC

America's harsh streets may be tougher for the homeless than they've ever been, according to two homeless-advocacy groups that on Wednesday released their survey of the nation's 20 â€œmeanestâ€? cities for the poor.

The list, compiled by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, places Sarasota, Fla., at the top. But â€œmeanâ€? municipalities span the nation â€” from New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles to smaller cities like Flagstaff, Ariz., and Little Rock, Ark.

Four of the cities are in Texas, two are in California and two are in Arizona. All are locations that a report accompanying the list finds reflect a growing willingness over the past 25 years â€œto turn to the criminal justice system to respond to people living in public spaces.â€?

Michael Stoops, acting executive director for the homeless coalition, put it more bluntly: â€œThere's open war on the homeless population.â€?

Sarasota was cited for its recent law banning lodging outdoors, passed after state courts rejected two earlier laws as unconstitutional. The report says that one of â€œthe elements necessary for arrest under the law is that the person â€˜has no other place to live.â€™â€?

Little Rock, which was No. 3, was cited for the police practice of removing homeless people from bus stations, despite their having legitimate travel plans. â€œTwo homeless men reported that officers of the Little Rock Police Department, in separate incidents, had kicked them out of the Little Rock Bus Station, even after showing the police their tickets,â€? the report said.

The report, which surveyed 224 U.S. cities, paints a worsening picture for America's homeless, a problem made more dire by Hurricane Katrina and other Gulf Coast storms last year.

Some of the report's findings:

Criminalization of the homeless increasingly occurs in ways like making it illegal to sit, sleep or place personal belongings in a public space. Some police departments make more aggressive sweeps of areas known to be populated by the homeless.
Twenty-seven percent of the cities surveyed prohibit sitting or lying in certain public places, a 14 percent increase over the number of cities surveyed in the groupsâ€™ last report, in 2002.
Forty-three percent of the cities surveyed bar begging in certain public places, a 12 percent increase over 2002.
â€œThese practices that criminalize homelessness do nothing to address the underlying causes of homelessness. Instead, they exacerbate the problem,â€? the report says.

Stoops finds parallels between the Reagan era and today. â€œThe period weâ€™re in is very similar to the early 1980s,â€? he said. â€œIn downtown America, throughout the country, there's a raging debate about what to do with the homeless population.

Whether itâ€™s the mayor of Little Rock or the mayor of Las Vegas, they're committed to throwing out broad-stroke myths about the homeless: that they're lazy, they're criminals, that they choose their lives.â€?

Some cities have adopted the argument that the predatory aspect of life on the streets makes laws isolating the homeless from the general population necessary.

Tulin Ozdeger, civil rights staff attorney at National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, disagrees.

â€œWe think there are ways to protect homeless people and those who arenâ€™t homeless in ways other than making it criminal to sleep outside or sleep on the sidewalk,â€? she said.

â€œIf the goal is to protect homeless people, increased resources for shelter space and day centers would be a good idea," Ozdeger said. "If a city canâ€™t find that space immediately, certainly having a police presence to make sure people aren't preyed on would be valuable.â€?

â€˜Some positive thingsâ€™
For Stoops, some cities get at least a B for effort. â€œPeople for the first time are talking about ending homelessness and developing 10-year plans to do so," he said. "Thereâ€™s no one city getting it right. There's no city sheltering all of its homeless, but there are cities that are making progress. Key West, for example, made our ranking a few years in a row but theyâ€™ve done some positive things in the last two years.â€?

But cities aren't getting any help from the federal government, Stoops said, citing legislation passed in December by the House and Senate that is meant to slash Medicaid funding by $4.8 billion and trim Supplemental Security Income assistance by more than $700 million over the next five years.

â€œTheyâ€™re talking about ending homelessness, but theyâ€™re creating more of it at the same time,â€? he said.

I have to disagree with this article. I don't think cities are enforcing enough rules to stop homelessness. Over here in South Beach it's become "infested" with homeless people. You pass by them all along Lincoln Road. In the morning you see them all sprawled out on the ground sleeping. It reeks of --pee pee-- and occasionally you can see --I have a Potty Mouth-- stained on the walls. A lot of them are drug addicts and/or mentally ill. A few weeks ago I had one raise up his hand to hit me. A year ago I was on a bus and a homeless man starting urinating on the bus.
They say no solutions are offered. 90% of the time homeless people come to my office seeking assistance but when told it is policy that they need to live in a shelter and we can help them find one, they are adamantly against living in a shelter. They complain there is a lot of crime in a shelter but almost all of them report being robbed of their belonging outside. I see no motivation in these people except to get freebies. They set up their own rules living on the streets where they don't have to listen to anybody. I know as a social worker I'm supposed to have some sympathy but these people don't want the solutions offered to them. I wish I could email the writer I don't think he knows enough about the issue. The reason why they can't sit down in a public space is because that space will become their permanent bedroom, bathroom, and living room. Sorry, had to vent, we shouldn't be making it easier to live on the streets. Working in New York before, I think they made the list because of law enforcement. New York has an excellent variety of social services offering solutions to the homeless, they are definitely taking the right step.

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 11:01 am Post subject:

i don't think homeless should be allowed in public places . i think they need to be placed in one of 3 or so catagories.

#1 evathey need to be picked up, evaluated, and then offered low income houseing and a job , placed in state care becuse some truly are mentally ill,
or returned ot ther families , with assistes care if needed.

abut eval has to be domw properly .

ya see in Savannah ther are tents set up like missonary tents to house thes people , so they havea place to go , consulars are there . for assistance and they are prought to mental health if needed ... which is 9 times out of 10.

in Savannah you can legally "beg" but you have to pay the 20$ for the begger permit .
normally
people get this permit and sit down in the tourestly areas as street prefomers .
you seem, the palm rosemakers , musisians , artists , jugglers ect ..

your more traditional HOBO hangs out in city market and begs near cousin vinnys or , next to my bar for a beer .

soem of out "homeless" drive new accords .. go figure
stumpy does . so a few just playit up

then again you also need to understand my stance on welfare .

I hate the current system.
and have posted before that it'sa crutch not helper.
welfare enables people to contunne beign lazy , hench the mentality of the left over katrina "vixctums" . that just want ther check., free aprtment , food stamps .
its' a life styl to them NOT to work.

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 2:15 pm Post subject:

I haven't been exposed to many homeless people. I think I've seen a couple at the park downtown where I take Keelan to play. This one guy was just sitting on the bench - not bothering anyone- and he had a little Pomeranian looking mix dog.
Keelan asked him his dog's name and the man was nice. Keelan told him it was a cute dog and that was it.
So, I don't really have an opinion on the kind of people talked about in this article.
paint,

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 2:22 pm Post subject:

I like a few homeless people Laughing

I took my dogs to a beach once and a homeless guy asked if he could pet them. We got to talking and it was a very nice and interesting conversation. Until someone asked what he was doing Rolling Eyes

Then I have had a homeless person beg for money so he can eat, I give him McDonalds that could feed 4/5 people, I went back inside to re-order, came back out and the food was scattered all over the floor Wink

I have no problem with homeless people in general, I try to help by offering a few dollars here and there, but sometimes they do make me very sad watching them Embarassed

I have been known to cry, especially when I saw a homeless women and her child (I felt bad, so gave her $75, no clue if it was even used for good or not). I do know of people (on my dads side) that actually dressed homeless and would stand on the corner. They were VERY well off, too.

When I lived in Italy, I saw them. I made friends with two who lived on a couch in Holland Laughing

I don't see many here.

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 2:25 pm Post subject:

I voted no, but only because I feel there should be more shelters and refuges for the homeless.

I feel so, so sorry for homeless people, because as paint said, many (if not the majority--I don't have stats) are mentally ill and honestly can't help their situation themselves. I think it's appalling that more money isn't spent to help these people, but there is a stigma in this country that all homeless people are just worthless, lazy bums, and that's just not so. As paint said...these people need to be picked up and evaluated and helped somehow beyond someone buying them a $3 Whopper. It makes me very sad Sad

. Many of this country's homeless are children, for God's sake. Someone needs to help these people Sad

.

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 2:33 pm Post subject:

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 2:37 pm Post subject:

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 3:10 pm Post subject:

I didn't vote since I've always lived in a rural area and just don't have experience with the homeless. That said, I do want to state the thoughts I have on it and see if they make sense to anyone who does have the experience I'm lacking.

My sole experience with the homeless pretty much consists of a memorable trip to Chicago when I was a young child. I'd never been exposed to the homeless, didn't know what they were or why they were there (on retrospect a head's up on this matter would have been great at that age!). I was horrified and doubly so at the fact that noone else seemed affected by them in the least.

I think that the abundance of homeless persons and the daily dismissal or disregardance on them by the general public generates an attitude towards them of 'chattel' or 'throw-aways' or 'nuisances'. Therefore, when you become accostumed to regarding these ~human beings~ as some sort of chattel then your feelings towards their humanity is lessened and you become callous. I wonder if this influences and encourages the practice of abusing them in a large degree? And if you can take the step towards abusing these persons because you regard them in a lessened degree does that not have a distinct possibility of escalating abusive acts towards those who you likewise view unfavorably?

With all this being said, I agree that protective steps - both for the homeless themselves, the general public, and the prevention of desenitization and abuse escalation - should be taken in a greater measure.

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 11:28 pm Post subject:

I voted no, they shouldn't be allowed in public places, but then again, I live in the capital city of BC and we have more than our fair share of "professional homeless".

Those are the protesters that are able to travel across the country from Quebec to BC to camp on the lawns of the Legislature to "protest" homelessness, the war, the policies, just about anything you can imagine.

They leave behind garbage, feces, urine, needles and did I mention garbage?

It's disgusting.

We have some true homeless as well. They sleep in the shelters or outside if there is no beds, the cops don't bother them because they don't bother anyone.

Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2006 11:37 pm Post subject:

My father works in cincinnati.
He says that the majority of the homeless people that ask him for money, are using it for drugs, and will tell him so.
I feel terrible for truley homeless people.. its terrible..

Once when My family and I were shopping in the mall.
When we went in we saw a man in ragged clothes, with crutches begging for money, so he could get medical attention.
When we came out of the store, we saw the same man ( now dressed in nice clean clothes)
Talking on a cell phone in the drivers seat of a very nice car, where you could see the crutches and a bag of his "homeless clothes" in the backseat.

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 9:12 am Post subject:

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 10:10 am Post subject:

Well, actually, the shelters fill up fast, there is not always room for a woman with children unless she made it to stand in line for hours before the shelter opened. That's the way the shelter here works - if you drive by at about 2 in the afternoon, people have already sat down outside the door to wait - by 6pm when the shelter opens, the line is very long. Once the beds are filled, the doors are shut and whoever is left in line is turned away.

Also, you have to establish residency before you can get any aid from welfare. So if a homeless person is truly homeless, and not living in a motel, it can be very difficult for them to establish residency in the county. The federal government gives money to each county, who doles it out as they see fit. That's why there can be such vast differences in policies from one county to the next. So just because social services where you live has enough resources that no child is on the street, doesn't mean that there are not children living on the street in the next county over. Not every homeless mother is 'strung out' - some (in fact most) are mentally ill.

Michigan has a huge homeless population that is mentally ill because one of the governors, in an effort to balance the budget, closed all the mental hospitals in the state. Social workers scrambled to get as many people into group homes as possible, but they were literally given no warning. So the mentally ill were turned loose on the streets, literally. And most of them are still there today.

There needs to be more shelters and more resources for homeless people, not less.

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 10:39 am Post subject:

i agree with... um EVERYONE!
there are many homeless people where i live and there aren't enough shelters that are easy to get into, and many of the homeless don't have a clue as to how to get the help they need. a lot of resources are not being utilized, because if you are drugged up or mentally ill you just don't have the wherewithall to get yourself some help.

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 11:13 am Post subject:

Many homeless are also addicted to drugs ans alcohol. I volunteered for several years at a pads center. The director would assign us a meal every week and each person would bring what we were assigned.

The director often suggested sloppy joes, mac and cheese, pasta, etc., stuff that is easy to make in large portions.

Every week I heard numerous complaints that they didn't want sloppy joes, that they were tired of mac and cheese. Some of them were quite irate about what they were served. It was a real eye opener for me.

Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 11:14 am Post subject:

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