One of the public relations triumphs of the pro-homeless movement—perhaps its greatest—has been inventing the phrase “criminalizing homelessness” (or, in other instances, “criminalizing poverty”). A Google search for the former results in 152,000 hits; for the latter, 477,000 hits.
The most salient definition I’ve found is this: “Poverty is criminalized when state and local policy choices trap people in the criminal legal system for engaging in activities to survive, such as driving without a license, being forced to sleep outside, or being unable to pay outstanding fines and fees.”
The reason the notion is so appealing to pseudo-moralizers, I think, is because the concept of “the poor” always has had a certain resonance in our Judeo-Christian culture. Christ treated the poor as a core constituency, while millennia of churches and rescue missions have raised charity toward the poor as a keystone of Christian (and Jewish) faith.
One suspects, however, that if Jesus himself managed to be transported to present-day Oakland, he might develop a different attitude toward the homeless. The reason is because the people whom Jesus called “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” were thought to be so not through their own misdeeds, but through the inexplicable evil of the material world; and it was assumed that “wicked men,” with contempt for God, often had thrust them into their sorry state. The current pro-homeless lobby continues this myth into our own time. But a little reflection will tell you that there can be no comparison between the poor whom Jesus tried to help, and the addicts and criminals who constitute so many of Oakland’s homeless population today.
That modern cities have the right and obligation to control homeless encampments is obvious, or should be to those who are being honest with themselves (if not with the public). Yet every time any city makes the slightest attempt to limit or clear encampments, the pro-homeless lobby jumps on them like Jesus did on the moneychangers in the temple, accusing them of being horrible people who want to “criminalize homelessness.” No one, needless to say, is proposing to do anything of the kind. Those who object to encampments dislike the disorderliness and uncleanness of so many encampments, and the crime inevitably associated with them. They object, too, to the knowledge—so often unacknowledged by pro-homeless advocates—that many encampment inhabitants are not exactly angels. One can only imagine what Jesus might say to them were he to come to Oakland. My sense is that it would be along the lines of, “Oh Brother, oh Sister, what caused you to choose such a reckless path?” With tears in his eyes, he might urge them to “Mend your ways, cease your drug-taking, get a job and resume a normal place in society.”
Thus, when I read about a pro-homeless advocacy group called the Georgia Supportive Housing Association, I just had to throw my hands up in despair. They are adamantly opposed to a pending bill in the Georgia State Senate that would “ban homeless encampments and cut state funding from cities that refuse to enforce the ban.” This approach—somewhat similar to Seneca Scott’s during the Mayoral race--clearly is the only way to end encampments, but the pro-homeless advocates are determined to resist it. The bill’s details were worked out by a Texas group, The Cicero Institute, in model legislation they drafted called the “Reducing Street Homelessness Act.” “In addition to Georgia,” reports the Pew Institute, “lawmakers in Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin have introduced bills that are similar to or have portions identical to the [Cicero] institute’s model legislation.”
Here’s what the Georgia Supportive Housing Association says about the Cicero Institute’s approach. “[The] Cicero Institute is using its vast resources funding lobbyists in Georgia and elsewhere to pass bills that contradict proven best practices, disregard local needs, and do nothing to reduce chronic unsheltered homelessness.”
A few questions: Who says that enforcing bans on encampments “contradicts proven best practices”? What are these “best practices”? According to whom? Is it a “best practice” to allow Wood Street and dozens of similar encampments to go on? If allowing encampments to befoul our parks and neighborhoods is a “best practice,” then maybe Oakland ought to resort to “worst practices.” I’m being facetious, but obviously the current approach of hands-off encampments has never worked and never can work.
And how does managing encampments “disregard local needs”? Another absurdity. Local citizens, especially those living near encampments, have begged the city for years to do something to help rid them of the threat, the garbage, the lawlessness, the plunging property values, the stores fleeing chaos and anarchy, caused by encampments. Authentic “local needs” are those of, for instance, CBO member and homeowner Carrie, from East Oakland, whose passionate pleas to her City Council member, Noel Gallo, to do something about the havoc enveloping her home have gone unheeded over the years. (Hearing her story makes me cry and get angry at the same time.) How dare pro-homeless activists talk about “local needs” while disregarding, with callous contempt, the despair so many tax-paying members of society feel at having to bear the burden of these encampments in their deteriorating neighborhoods!
Look, if passing and strengthening anti-encampment laws constitutes “dangerous reversals” of the current situation (as the Georgia Supportive Housing Association claims), then I say, bring on the reversals! We want to reverse the degradation of our cities. We want to reverse the nonsense among elected officials to celebrate these encampments as some kind of crowning glory, in which Oakland can take pride for its humanitarian tolerance of them. We want to reverse the horrible notion that inviting homeless people to squat in Oakland, and then permitting them to stay, is somehow an act of compassion. It is not. It’s an act of suicide. We end up with Wood Street and its metastasizing offspring. By acting forcefully against encampments, we’re not criminalizing the homeless. And by not acting against encampments, we’re criminalizing law-abiding citizens who want our city back.
Steve Heimoff