Criminalize Homelessness

City by city, more ordinances are being voted into place regarding the control of homeless populations. Laws outlawing camping in a city allows law enforcement to encourage unhoused persons to go into emergency shelters and get help, or else stay overnight in a jail, or else pay a fine if they insist on sleeping outdoors within the city's limits. Such ordinances recently got pushed as if there was an emergency into votes within two-day period in a succession of Illinois towns, including Springfield. Here in Springfield, the community of unhoused persons could have been made into criminals within 48 hours if there was no restraint.

This ordinance gives police and city legal authorities the power to enforce removal orders and impose jail, fees, or penalties if people were not gone within the 24-hours of the removal order. This is not an effective way to solve or prevent homelessness. There are many organizations that provide support needed such as Heartland Housed, Helping Hands, Contact Ministries, Inner City Mission, and many different sheltering and food services. To meet homeless people with more negativity and fees, this would further the cycle of poverty and life on the street. With support, people can spend time with resources, eventually being able to work again and find themselves in housing.

Not only does this ordinance reverse progress made on the increasingly significant issue of homelessness, it also makes public services and places seem unavailable or inaccessible. This is because it allows police officers to remove homeless people from an area and jail/fine them if they have not gone. There is no restriction on how far the area can be of removal. This ordinance can remove a human’s right to public property and services. It can also influence homeless people to stay away from certain areas, and therefore prevent them from accessing essential resources such as housing, food, and job opportunities.

With all the control over this population within the community, there can become a general distrust of public service workers. This could include the people out there trying to help them. Many factors could now influence the homeless from avoiding the help to get out of this cycle. Without plan for alternative accommodation and placement, this ordinance would undo the progression done for homeless community. Criminalization does not solve the issue just as seen with the war on drug.

Overall, passing an ordinance to criminalize homelessness would have far more negative effects than positive on the surrounding community. Homelessness should be met with support and a proactive approach.

You strongly oppose ordinances criminalizing camping in the city or sleeping outdoors, and you offer many reasons for your negative feelings about such ordinances. A key difference of opinion between those who humanely support such ordinances and those who oppose them seems rooted in the question of whether such ordinances will increase the use of services to help people move from a state of being unhoused to a state of having permanent housing.  Humane supporters of such ordinances claim that the laws will enable law enforcement to coerce unhoused people into services.  Supporters of  the ordinance hold a premise (or perhaps it is a belief based on some evidence?) is that several persons who sleep on streets in vacant lots, in doorways, and in tents within a city do so because they shun the alternatives (of going into emergency housing, and getting help there to transition toward moving into permanent housing). Are there actually beds and spots in emergency shelters where people could stay if they aren't allowed to sleep outdoors?  Are people who refuse to use the services offered by shelters doing so because they do not want the services that would help them get into permanent housing?  Do emergency shelters offer services that are likely to be successful in moving unhoused persons into permanent housing?  

Persons opposing the laws make the same observations that you make.  They seem to hold a premise (or an observation based on evidence) that coercively forcing people into services is unlikely to work, and may provoke more negative emotions and avoidance-of-help behaviors than already exist.  Persons also may doubt the humane intentions of persons advocating for the ordinances.  There may be a strong suspicion (that I also happen to hold) that rather than being motivated by hoping to get people into services, many who support such ordinances are actually motivated by a desire to "get rid" of unhoused persons, by chasing them out of the city or else locking them up.  

The counts of persons who are unhoused have been increasing.  After years of January census efforts to count single night occupancy of emergency shelters and persons sleeping outdoors or in sheltered indoor spots not intended for sleeping, the numbers most recently have started to increase significantly. The numbers had been fairly stable since the end of the Great Recession, but the inflation of housing and rental costs associated with the post-Covid inflationary housing shortage seems to be forcing more people into shelters or the streets. Efforts to help the homeless by expanding emergency shelter spots or accommodating camping may be misguided if they are not combined with a significant effort to create permanent housing destinations and help unhoused persons get into the permanent housing solutions. 

If permanent housing solutions are available for unhoused people, surely almost all of them will take advantage of the opportunity to get into a home of their own instead of living in tents or on sidewalks. I wish there were a law that cities and counties had to provide housing of a certain standard to unhoused persons, and criminal penalties would be imposed on elected officials who failed to do this, rather than criminal penalties being imposed on persons who can find nowhere to call a home where they can be safe from the elements. While the free market can dominate the housing market, some degree of housing ought to be provided outside capitalist pressures and profit-making motives.  

Ideally, I believe something like 10% to 30% of all housing ought to be provided on a non-profit or public basis.  I think this would be good in a few ways.  It would, first of all, make it possible to meet the standards of human rights, as all people have a right to a certain standard of living that includes housing.  Secondly, once a certain percentage of housing stock is organized in a non-profit or public way, the private market must keep rent and housing prices lower, as the widely available non-profit and public housing options will create a competitive pressure on those who rent or sell housing, forcing them to keep their prices lower (and their profits more reasonable).  Further, if cities and neighborhoods and non-profit housing corporations take up a significant portion of all housing development and provision, they can use this power to push cities toward designs and zoning principles that help break up racial segregation, help make cities more walkable or bike friendly, and promote energy efficient and financially sustainable housing.  

I recommend Hanna Rosin's June 6, 2024 article in The Atlantic “A Supreme Court Ruling on Homelessness That's both Crucial and Useless”.  [could be blocked by a paywall, as you can get three articles a month without a subscription]

Also, the article by Thomas Birmingham from August 27, 2024 in The Appeal. “Cities Rush to Criminalize Homelessness after Supreme Court Ruling”

Also, the article by Deianira Nevárez Martínez from The Conversation (October 2, 2024) “Cities are clearing encampments, but this won't solve homelessness - here's a better way forward”.

See Lisel Petis’s article “Breaking the Cycle: Effectively Addressing Homelessness and Safety” from R Street (October 24, 2024). 

You might also like the article from Nonprofit Law Prof Blog by Darrell K. Jones (Florida A&M University College of Law) “A Bi-Coastal Crisis of Credibility Amongst Homelessness Nonprofits” (October 22, 2024).