Posted on 01/12/2006 3:45:47 AM PST by Ninian Dryhope
Houston ranked seventh on a list released Wednesday of 20 U.S. cities with particularly harsh measures that criminalize sleeping in public, begging or other behavior associated with homeless people.
In including Houston on the "meanest cities" list for the first time in the four years it has been compiled, leaders of two national homeless-advocacy organizations cited other neighborhoods' efforts to be added to the areas covered under a city ordinance that makes it illegal to lie, sit or place belongings on downtown or Midtown sidewalks from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
The report's authors also cited rules the city adopted in April that prohibit people with "offensive bodily hygiene" from using public libraries. Advocates for the homeless say the rules, which also forbid sleeping on tables or using restrooms for bathing, obviously target homeless people.
The National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty said such measures are growing more common across the country even as urban homelessness worsens.
"A war on the homeless is being waged in downtown America," said Michael Stoops, acting executive director of the national coalition.
"The criminalization of homelessness is a burning civil rights issue for this decade."
Several homeless people in areas affected by Houston's ordinance said enforcement has been particularly intense recently under the eastern portion of the Pierce Elevated.
The western portions were fenced off last year to provide parking for Metropolitan Transit Authority employees.
"They woke us up one afternoon because the sleeping bag was 1 inch over the sidewalk," said Kris Kirchner, 48, who said she's been living on the streets intermittently for years.
Such efforts, Kirchner said, seem intended to keep homeless people out of downtown, "but I want to know how you make 6,000 people disappear."
Leaders of local groups that serve the homeless said homeless people often move to adjacent neighborhoods in response to police enforcement efforts. Mayor Bill White said he is inclined to agree.
"These ordinances are limited and not effective in dealing with the issue because they focus on moving people around rather than solving the problem," said White, adding that he had supported the 2004 extension of Houston's ordinance to Midtown because of the "overwhelming support" from residents there.
The ordinance applied only to downtown when it was adopted in 2002.
Two years later, leaders of rapidly developing Midtown successfully petitioned for inclusion. The city secretary's office is reviewing similar petitions submitted by three other neighborhoods, including two in the Montrose area, said Dale Harger, the president of the Avondale Association in Montrose.
Harger said an overwhelming majority of the neighborhood's residents and property owners support the extension of the ordinance to Avondale.
Harger and other neighborhood activists say well-intentioned programs offered by churches and charities offer food or showers without helping the homeless find temporary shelter or permanent housing.
"There are some organizations in the neighborhood that artificially attract and concentrate the young homeless crowd, which draws the wolves and the predators," Harger said. "They are hurting the people they're trying to help."
The homeless-advocacy groups said the concerns that often motivate such laws are valid, but they said approaches other than criminalization are more effective and humane.
In Broward County, Fla., a nonprofit agency has partnered with police to create outreach teams that, in five years, have placed more than 11,000 people in shelters while arrests of homeless people have declined.
when you let the homeless drift aimlessly that is when you are mean to the homeless.
"that makes it illegal to lie, sit or place belongings on downtown or Midtown sidewalks from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m."
What's the beef? After 11, you can stretch and take a load off.
Exactly.
Houston should provide comfortable sofabeds at all the bus stops. Leather would be nice.
LOL!!!!!
Whoa there. *Dallas* is the *Meanest City in Texas.* We're pikers, slacking off at 7th in the US to their 6th.
Send 'em to 'Frisco.
We'll give 'em free WiFi.
Let the midnight special
Shine her light on me;
Let the midnight special
Shine her ever-loving light on me.
This is EXACTLY the kind of thanks you would expect from people who expect nothing from themselves, and everything from the world in return for nothing, and rrrright now.
maybe some could move up to the kennedy compound
The solution is simple. Have the homeless camp out at the Chronicle building. The lib's that work there surely won't mind.
Detroit is about to become No. 1 due to the Stupor Bowl.
Excellent plan Houston, you know how to move these indigents along to greener pastures. Make it tough on them.
I quit using the Dallas Public Library downtown because of the "homeless" problem.
You'd think instead of begging people for money so they can publish this kind of stuff these "nonprofit charities / lawyer support groups" would raise money then provide these people a home. The ONLY reason we are reading about these so-called "rankings" is so these outfits can get their names out there so they can raise more taxpayer subsidized money.
I wonder where Houston ranks in not giving new Mercedes and Rolex's to the homeless. /sarcasm off.
Ken Hamlin suggests that we feed the homeless to the hungry and solve 2 problems simultaneously.
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