Wayne Mellinger, “THE CRIMINALIZATION OF HOMELESSNESS IS MORALLY WRONG”

 “THE CRIMINALIZATION OF HOMELESSNESS IS MORALLY WRONG”

By Wayne M. Mellinger

Noozhawk Columnist

26 April 2022

In the five years that Texas-born Anthony Reeves has been homeless in Santa Barbara he’s gotten over a dozen tickets for just existing in public spaces.  “They seem to not want us around,” he told me several weeks ago. 

“You wouldn’t believe how many tickets I gotten for petty stuff—sitting on a sidewalk, sleeping at the beach, urinating in the bushes in the middle of the night. I now have a rap sheet a couple pages long and that makes finding work and a place to live even that much harder.”

Reeves lives in the city of Santa Barbara, California, where, with 822 unhoused people there are almost three times as many homeless people as there are emergency shelter beds.  Hundreds of people, including many women, people with mental health challenges, those who are elderly, and / or disabled live on the streets year round.

This lack of shelter beds forces people like Anthony Reeves to live their private lives in public spaces.

Many of these people must carry around all their possessions, which makes them visibly homeless.

By “visibly homeless” I refer to those people that you can tell that they live on the streets.  They might have an oversized backpack with sleeping rolls attached to it.  They might have on multiple layers of clothing.  Their hygiene might be less than perfect. This is our stereotyped image of “homeless person”, and while many people may fit this image there are actually more who do not look like that.  

The “invisible homeless” appear like anyone else (who is housed).  They avoid carrying all their stuff,  have impeccable hygiene and clean clothing. They often still have resources and are still connected to friends and family.  

These connections allows them to “couch surf”, keep possessions with friends and be clean and presentable. They often have jobs and cars, but cannot afford the skyrocketing rents of Santa Barbara.  They tend not to hang out with other homeless people.

In contrast, the visible homeless tend to congregate together.

Because the invisible homeless can pass as housed, they avoid the stigma and discrimination faced by the visibly homeless, who are vilified by segments of our community, and even become victims of violent crime.  

The visibly homeless often are scapegoated for social ills they did not create. While some of these visibly homeless have mental health challenges and self-medicate with illicit substances, the public generalizes and assumes that all homeless people have psychiatric disorders and all “do drugs”

Across the country in numerous communities there is a campaign by those in power to harass and penalize those visibly living on the streets.  Social scientists refer to this as “the criminalization of homelessness”, which is defined as the construction of laws, policies and ordinances that make it illegal for unhoused people to engage in the normal, everyday, life-sustaining activities that housed people perform daily (in the privacy of their homes).

Numerous local communities, overwhelmed by the numbers of people flocking to their cities, have implemented draconian laws to discourage people from staying.  These local ordinances are devised to bring law enforcement officers into close contact with those on the streets to enforce arbitrary policies meant to harass those without homes. 

Proponents of these criminalizing measures like to call these “quality of life” ordinances and argue that they improve public safety and business, although there is no evidence of that. These ordinances are also called “tough love” although it is hard to see any sort of compassion in these law enforcement policies.

These anti-homeless laws include bans on camping in public, bans on sleeping in public, laws prohibiting begging, laws on loitering, bans on sleeping in vehicles and bans on food sharing.

Courts have invalidated many of these laws on the grounds that they violate constitutional protections such as freedom from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eight Amendment, the right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment and the right to due process guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

 

In a 2018 decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Martin vs. Boise) it was held that cities cannot enforce anti-camping ordinances if they do not have enough homeless shelter beds available for their homeless population.  This court ruling has not stopped the Santa Barbara Police Department from issuing citations to people found sleeping outdoors, even though our shelters are completely full.

When I’ve asked city officials or law enforcement officers where the 600 people without homes or shelter beds are supposed to go at night, they have no answer.

The real goal of anti-homeless laws is to hit the most visible culprits with a barrage of tickets so that they will leave town.  

Civil rights are routinely violated so that rich communities like Santa Barbara retain their tourist destination status.  Civic organizations, such as Santa Barbara’s Downtown Organization, spend vast amounts on security teams (“Ambassadors”) who are charged with targeting homeless people in busy shopping districts. 

Social injustices abound, all in the name of profit. 

For the fragile and traumatized people sleeping in doorways and encamped along our creeks, this increased and unwanted attention by law enforcement teams feels like brute torment.  They feel singled out and penalized for behaviors for which housed people are ignored.  

Judges and courtroom personnel feel that their time and skills are wasted on people with no criminal intent, who are not really harming anyone.  Through these laws, we inflict more suffering on those who are already marginalized, displaced and struggling to subsist.

We need to find constructive alternatives to criminalization.  There are other ways to address the problem of visible homelessness.  The unhoused need places to go during the day and places to sleep at night.

Some time ago, in an article in Noozhawk I proposed a “Safe Sleeping Program” that would be modeled after the Safe Parking Program, which is currently run by New Beginnings Counseling Center. To learn more check out this article.

For a place to go during the day we need day centers for the unhoused. For an exemplary model of what a day center can be no finer example could be found than the Fr. Virgil Cordano Center,  a collaborative ministry of the Franciscan Friars at the Old Mission of Santa Barbara and the Daughters of Charity at St. Vincent’s.  Unfortunately, 600 people cannot all use this one facility and others are greatly needed.

The radical hospitality offered here is nurturing and supportive. Breakfast and lunch are served. Laundry can be done. A kind and loving staff know all the resources to help people navigate social services. 

Our whole community, including those who make and those who enforce out laws, could all learn something about the meaning of Jesus’s commandment “Love thy neighbors” by watching how these Good Samaritans go above and beyond to help someone in their time of need. Rather than harassing and criminalizing the poorest among us we need to show them we truly care.