Homeless Bill of Rights
[2] A Homeless Bill of Rights has become law in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Illinois and is under consideration by several other U.S. states, including California, Delaware, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont.
[5] The criminalization of homelessness creates a vicious cycle of citations, fines, imprisonment, and reduced employability that further increases the difficulty of securing stable housing.
[1] The criminalization of homelessness can be defined as the passage of laws or ordinances that prohibit sitting, sleeping, panhandling, sharing food, or religious practice in public spaces.
[1] These measures penalize individuals from performing necessary, life-sustaining practices (such as sleeping) outside of the private domain, and disproportionately impact unhoused populations who have no choice but to occupy public space for these activities.
They are contrary to the fundamental religious and political principals from which the American people seek guidance, and their existence demonstrates that we have fallen vastly short of our religious and foundational aspirations.Homeless Bills of Rights seek to amend local codes that outlaw loitering, vagrancy, sitting or lying on the sidewalk, begging, urinating, eating in public, and other behaviors that disproportionately affect homeless people.
[1] Opposition to legislature that supports the rights of unhoused individuals primarily comes from state and city officials, housed citizens, and varied business interests.
[9] Business interests, represented by the California Chamber of Commerce, have called Assemblymember Tom Ammiano's Homeless Person's Bill of Rights [10] a "job killer" which would create "costly and unreasonable mandates on employers.
San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener commented:[13] Our local laws against forming encampments, passing out and blocking sidewalks, and otherwise monopolizing public spaces would be wiped off the books.
Just wait until this passes.The Los Angeles Times suggested in an editorial that the Homeless Bill of Rights does not go far enough unless accompanied by economic resources allocated to provide housing.
[19] It amends the Rhode Island Fair Housing Act with wording intended to protect the rights of homeless people and prevent discrimination against them.
[23] The measure, SB 1210, was passed in May 2013 by the Illinois General Assembly and immediately went into effect after being signed by Governor Pat Quinn on August 22 of that year.
The Illinois law is also noteworthy because it allows plaintiffs to recover monetary damages and attorney's fees should their rights be infringed upon, something that is not covered in the Connecticut legislation.
[3] State Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) introduced a Homeless Person's Bill of Rights[10] to the California Assembly in December 2012.
[10] (b) Every person shall have the following rights in public space without being subject to criminal or civil penalties or harassment by law enforcement, public or private security personnel, or any agents of any public-private partnership established under any municipal or county law: California's Homeless Bill of Rights(Right2Rest Act), SB 608, was introduced by Senator Carol Liu (D) in February 2015.
[26] Like the bill proposed in California, HB-1284 seeks to protect the rights of unhoused individuals to move without fear of harassment, sleep, eat and share food, engage in religious practices, and occupy a legally parked vehicle in public spaces.
