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In 33 U.S. Cities, Feeding the Homeless Has Been Criminalized
Mike Krieger
12
June, 2014
The
“war on compassion” when it comes to the homeless in America has
been one of Liberty Blitzkrieg’s key themes this year. There are
many reasons why I find this topic to be of such tremendous
importance. First and foremost, I think that if we want to see
how the state and crony corporate status quo will treat everyone in
the future, all you have to do is look at how the homeless are being
“dealt with.” Secondly, random groups feeding the homeless in
various venues is a great example of decentralized compassion.
Political power hates decentralization and is quite intentionally
trying to corral the homeless into the centralized bureaucratic
channels over which it has total control. So this isn’t merely a
humanitarian issue, it is also a front line battle in the key war of
our time: Decentralization
vs. Centralization.
As
I mentioned, this has been a key topic on this site in 2014. Before
reading on, I suggest checking out some of my recent posts on it:
Moving
along to the meat of this post, the National
Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) is
about to release a report that details how 33 cities in America have
either banned or are considering banning feeding homeless people.
It’s so bad, that the UN singled out the U.S. in a report on human
rights for our nation’s criminalization of the homeless. Where’s
George Clooney and the rest of the Hollywood faux human rights
celebrities on this issue? Crickets.
PolicyMic reports
that:
The
news: In case the United States’ problem with homelessness
wasn’t bad enough, a forthcoming National
Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) report
says that 33
U.S. cities now ban or
are considering banning the practice of sharing food with homeless
people. Four
municipalities (Raleigh, N.C.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Birmingham, Ala.;
and Daytona Beach, Fla.) have recently gone as far as to fine,
remove or threaten to throw in jail private groups that work to serve
food to the needy instead of letting government-run services do the
job.
Why
it’s happening: The bans are officially instituted to prevent
government-run anti-homelessness programs from being diluted. But
in practice, many of the same places that are banning food-sharing
are the same ones that have criminalized homelessness with harsh
and punitive measures. Essentially,
they’re designed to make being homeless within city limits so
unpleasant that the downtrodden have no choice but to leave. Tampa,
for example, criminalizes
sleeping or storing property in public.
Columbia, South Carolina, passed a measure that essentially would
have empowered police to ship
all homeless people out of town.
Detroit PD officers have been accused of illegally
taking the homeless and
driving them out of the city.
The
UN even went so far as to single the U.S. out in a report
on human rights,
saying criminalization of homelessness in the U.S. “raises concerns
of discrimination and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
According
to the NCH, one survey of homelessness found 62,619
veterans were
homeless in January 2012. Other
at-risk groups for homelessness include the
seriously ill, battered women and people suffering from drug
addictions or mental illness. The economy isn’t helping. More
Americans live in poverty than before the recession began in 2008 and
the number of households living under the poverty line has reached
levels unseen
since the 1960s.So
we send young kids off to die in pointless wars and if they actually
come back and before homeless we aren’t allowed to feed them. Stay
classy America.
In
Liberty,
Michael Krieger
Michael Krieger
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