It's A Crime (literally) To Be Poor

[jeffrey]

IT’S too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s. “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/op...hrenreich.html

[good2goo]

These laws are just ridiculous and absent of any compassion. Criminalizing the poor seems like it would lead to more crime. If a person is not allowed to beg for money, then aren't they likely to steal to get money for their basic necessities?

[FrugalFish]

A few years ago they passed a county ordinance here that made (and I quote) "homelessness against the law." I remember shaking my head and trying to figure that one out- as if someone says, "Hey honey, let's sell the house and live on the street! The kids'll love it!" It once again shows the total disconnectedness of those who make legislation.

[rob62521]

This is incredibly sad and our legislators are so far removed from what is actually going on.

As a teacher, it angers me to see these same legislators think they can make kids learn by making laws. I guess they have the same idea about homelessness.