By Eric Ares, Dilara Yarbrough and Paul Boden, Contributing Columnists
On April 23, the California State Assembly Judiciary
Committee passed Assembly Bill 5, also known as the Homeless Person’s Bill of
Rights and Fairness Act, out of committee with a 7-2 vote. More than just a
legislative procedure, the vote was the latest victory for a growing national
movement of people and organizations committed to ending the criminalization of
homelessness and poverty in cities and regions across the country.
Throughout the history of the United States, discriminatory
laws have stripped the most marginalized populations in our society of their
constitutional rights. And time and time again, it has taken the work of those
dedicated to equality and justice to challenge and end these threats to our
civil liberties. So while the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 ended Jim Crow segregation, it is important for us to remember that
it took the organizing and sacrifice of thousands of freedom fighters to force
legislators to act on these landmark pieces of legislation.
This is why a Homeless Bill of Rights is needed now more
than ever. Multiple economic recessions and the shredding of our social safety
net programs have led municipalities to pass laws that punish, rather than
help, the most vulnerable in our society. Today, homeless people all over the
United States are cited, arrested and jailed just for being without housing.
Sleeping, sitting, standing — these are life sustaining activities and
fundamental human rights that are denied to the homeless.
However, last year Rhode Island passed the first Homeless
Bill of Rights. And now there are campaigns to pass similar laws underway in
Oregon, Vermont, Connecticut, Missouri and California. These bills reflect a
growing dissatisfaction with the current strategy of criminalization that fails
to address growing economic disparities and inevitably results in human rights
abuses. California’s Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights and Fairness Act demands that
the State of California differentiate between criminal acts that a person might
commit (regardless of housing status) and life-sustaining acts we all perform
but that become criminal offenses for those without housing.
But laws like this do not happen on their own. They take the
dedication and coordinated efforts of a movement. A Homeless Bill of Rights is
more than just a law protecting the rights of the economically disenfranchised.
It underscores our desperate need in this country to once and for all create a
society where all people are valued and treated with the dignity and respect
they deserve. It speaks against our age-old pattern of laws that are used to
coerce, to humiliate or dehumanize. A Homeless Bill of Rights reconfirms rights
that we all know should exist, and at the same time it allows those who are
experiencing homelessness to stand against the structural violence that they
are experiencing.
In addition, when these laws are passed — when police and
criminalization are no longer used as de facto solutions to the “problem” of
homelessness — maybe then we can start to focus on the real solution to
homelessness: housing. We need the Department of Housing and Urban Development
budgets returned to their pre-Reagan levels. We need to stop the systematic
dismantling of public housing. We need a commitment to the human right to
housing. However, these goals cannot be attained if we keep allowing police to
force homeless people into hiding– under our bridges, into the shadows of our
alleys– or remove homeless people from visibility through arrest.
AB 5 is now continuing through the legislative process. It
sits in the Appropriations Committee and will hopefully make its way to the
full California State Assembly next month. The movement has thousands behind
it, led by the Western Regional Advocacy Project, its member organizations and
their partners. We will be there every
step of the way until we see the Homeless Bill of Rights become a reality.
Eric Ares, Dilara Yarbrough and Paul Boden are with the
Western Regional Advocacy Project, or WRAP, which champions the civil and human
rights of individuals experiencing poverty and homelessness. Street Roots is a
proud member of WRAP.
This article appears in 2013-05-10.