Punishing Homelessness Will Never Solve Homelessness
Across the nation, including here in the Mountain State, governments are grappling with an epidemic of homelessness.
According to the January 2022 Point in Time Count, 18 out of every 10,000 people in the U.S. were experiencing homelessness (PIT counts do not and cannot account for everyone experiencing homelessness at the time of the count). Here at home, an estimated 1,375 West Virginians are homeless on any given night.
Homelessness is intractable. The issue sits at the intersection of a number of challenging crises, including a growing number of individuals and communities ravaged by substance use disorder and untreated mental illness. Layer on top of that a complete lack of housing affordability/availability; wages and SSI/SSDI benefits that are insufficient to cover the cost of housing; evictions without representation; and the evaporation of Covid relief benefits; and we have ourselves what planning and policy professionals call a “wicked problem.”
In the absence of a simple fix, governments — especially local governments — increasingly rely on carceral strategies to punish unsheltered residents. Camping bans, panhandling bans, food sharing bans, and littering, trespass, and loitering laws are just some of the ways people experiencing homelessness end up with tickets, in jail, or otherwise entangled with the criminal law system.
Proponents of a criminalization approach — which seems to include at least some local leadership in Morgantown, Charleston, Parkersburg, Wheeling, and Huntington — fail to understand that criminal records and interaction with criminal courts are incompatible with safe and secure housing.
For example, charges and convictions can:
- result in dismissal from employment or be used as a reason not to hire someone;
- make someone ineligible for federal housing subsidies as well as turn off potential landlords; and
- lead to short and long-term incarceration — a far more expensive solution than simply providing shelter or permanent housing.
And here’s the thing: criminalizing homelessness is, in many instances, unconstitutional. People experiencing homelessness are afforded the same constitutional protections as those who are housed: a roof over one’s head is not a prerequisite for due process. While governments locally and across the country devise scheme after scheme to punish away homelessness, the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of these efforts don’t pass constitutional muster and fail in court.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of what governments generally cannot do:
- Tear down someone’s camp and throw away their belongings with no notice;
- Broadly limit an individual’s ability to solicit charity (e.g., panhandle) from other people in public spaces;
- Ticket or arrest people for sleeping outside when no reasonable alternative exists; or
- Disallow sitting or lying down in public.
Even so, our governments continue to push the limits of permissible action, even in the face of threatened litigation.
I am writing this blog from Mountain State Justice’s Morgantown office, where just this week we received multiple reports from legal observers and homeless neighbors that the Morgantown Police Department broke down multiple encampments — seemingly without notice, issued a number of tickets for camping, improperly storing one’s belongings, trespass, and soliciting charity (relying on a facially unconstitutional 2005 ordinance). Our team confirmed that all of this was done despite the fact that Bartlett House, our local homeless shelter, is at capacity and won’t add additional capacity until temperatures drop below 40 degrees.
One person has been stopped and ticketed multiple times in a 24-hour span. Each ticket summons her to court on a specified day, at which time — if found guilty — she could be ordered to pay a fine. This person and her partner work: what happens if she misses court to keep her job? A warrant could be issued for her arrest. At the end of the day, she still has nowhere to go and absolutely none of this will get her housed.
When leadership are ready to seriously and humanely address the epidemic of homelessness, they will explore proven policy and programming changes like the development of low-barrier shelters; the adoption of a Housing First approach; a right to counsel in eviction proceedings; eliminating source of income discrimination; permitting harm reduction programs; investing in social work and mental health professionals; and updating zoning regulations to encourage the development of affordable housing.
Any one of these solutions will result in more housed people than writing a ticket or throwing someone in jail ever could. Perhaps sharing this blog with your representatives is a good place to start. It is incumbent upon allies of people experiencing homelessness to organize and agitate, to build broad public understanding and support for these policies if our goal is to get everyone safely and securely housed.
If you or your organization are working with any individuals or communities who are being criminally punished for being homeless, our team would love to speak with them. We have physical offices in Charleston, Morgantown, and Princeton and are available by phone (304) 344–3144. If necessary, we could also come to them. Please encourage them to reach out.
