Criminalizing the homeless does not make the crisis go away

The Department of Housing and Urban Development released a report in December 2017 revealing that the homelessness population has increased for the first time since 2010. The surge most prominent in west coast cities. In Los Angeles, 58,000 citizens are left without food, shelter, water or medical supplies that are necessities to survive. The city with the second highest homeless rate in the country has taken more steps to enforce the criminalization of homelessness.  

Los Angeles has several “Quality of life” laws, seemingly an attack on their homeless populations. The laws deem sleeping in your car during the hours of 9 pm to 8 am or at anytime within a block  from a park, daycare, or school faultily, sleeping or sitting on a public sidewalk, however the law is not effective on benches or other seating provided by the government illegal, and having a tent in any public hour from 6 am or 9 pm unless it is under 50 degrees or raining outside but the police can immediately remove the shelter if it blocks a path or in any way be considered hazardous illegal. LA officials have denounced the idea of interdicting homelessness but as the population continues to grow so have the arrest on homeless citizens. The LA Times reported that since 2016 the number of arrests against the two-thirds of the population that are not able to access housing shelters by 36%. The arrest first starts out as citation, committing one of the acts restricted by the quality of life laws results in a ticket with the upward value of $100 with an additional $1-200 of court fees without much need for explanation the homeless keep committing the “offenses”, the tickets pile up, court dates are missed and the innocent are eventually thrown into the already overpopulated prison system.  

It should not be considered a surprise that throwing the homeless in jail is not a solution to the crisis. Obviously, no one wants to be homeless and to add misdemeanors to their resumes makes it easier for jobs to turn away homeless citizens who are actively trying to get out of the streets. Where is the justice in punishing the one’s who are forced to slum in the streets because no other opinion is available to them? The former head of the LAPD’s homeless department Todd Chamberlin released this statement in regards of the growing number of arrests “What we’re trying to do is our best to serve and solve a complex problem that is far beyond what we have been given the tools and mechanics to fix 

The criminalization of homeless is a far fetched idea of “fixing” the homeless crisis. Considering the fact that felonies can disqualify a person for getting housing. Instead of locking the homeless up, the city of LA should look into creating rehabilitation services  in place to stabilize victims of homelessness or the creation of more shelters are created to combat the overflow happening in shelters around the city. Nationalhomless.org studies have showed that the homeless populations are made up mostly of domestic violence victims, veterans, persons with mental health disorders, and people suffering from addiction. Most have an inaccurate idea of homeless people, people on the street looking for money instead of getting and readily available job. The reality is not that simple, even if the homeless were able to find jobs, consider the fact that most do not have formal college education, leaving them to minimum wage jobs. A pay that does not cover rent, anywhere in America. The existence of homeless people is a problem that will undoubtedly take decades to fix, not by throwing victims in jail but by communities and the government to recognize that homeless people do not fit into a sub-genre of humans, researching and developing support services must be established to be able to even think about solving  the crisis that is growing by the day.