"In San Francisco last year, the police issued over 16,000 `quality of
life' violation tickets -- most of them to homeless people. Police are taking
photographs of people they claim are `habitual drinkers' ... and distributing
them to liquor stores.''
Report Cites Harassment of Homeless
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's homeless people are increasingly being
harassed by police, driven from the streets in which they beg and sleep by
cities putting ``meanness'' ahead of compassion, an advocacy group's report
contends.
Many cities are bent on ``criminalizing homelessness'' and are failing to take
advantage of existing constructive methods to treat homeless people for
physical and mental problems and get them into housing and jobs, says the
report by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
But affordable housing remains a principal barrier, according to the report
released Monday. It is the fifth such report issued since 1991.
``While cities continue to crack down on homeless people, resources to shelter
homeless people or to help them to become self-sufficient are sorely
lacking,'' the report says.
``Instead of sending in the police to move and arrest these people, you can
provide resources,'' said Maria Foscarinis, the center's executive director.
``Criminalizing is a quick fix, but it's not a solution. People have to go
somewhere.''
The report says many cities are turning to their police forces to enforce new
or old laws that limit the use of public space and restrict begging. They are
targeting the homeless for selective enforcement of the law and conducting
sweeps to physically remove them, the report says.
It cited five cities -- Atlanta, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Tucson,
Ariz. -- as being especially tough on the homeless and ``promoting the
`meanest' streets.'''
The report makes these assertions:
Atlanta: ``Sweeps and crackdowns continue to occur with homeless people being
removed from under bridges and moved along in the downtown area.''
Chicago: The city ``has made a concerted effort to arrest and prosecute
homeless people for panhandling'' and is trying to remove them altogether from
certain areas.
New York City: ``There continues to be a crackdown on homeless people as the
mayor focuses on `quality of life' violations; sweeps continue on an almost
nightly basis.''
San Francisco: ``From January to November 1998 the police issued over 16,000
`quality of life' violation tickets, the majority of which were issued to
homeless people. Police are taking pictures of people they claim are `habitual
drinkers' ... and distributing them to liquor stores.''
Tucson: ``City officials fully accept the criminalization policy; council
members proposed looking into a plan to privatize the sidewalks which would
allow business owners to keep homeless people off the sidewalks. Some homeless
people were released from jail with travel restrictions.''
``Some concerns about public space are legitimate,'' the report says.
``Ultimately, no city resident -- homeless or housed -- wants people living
and begging in the streets.''
But it contends that rather than turning to the police, ``cities must
concentrate on efforts to alleviate the problem of homelessness rather than
concentrating on the symptoms of the problem.''
