EDITORIAL – LA’s homeless have rights, too

Being homeless isn’t a crime, but until recently in Los Angeles, sleeping in public spaces was… Being homeless isn’t a crime, but until recently in Los Angeles, sleeping in public spaces was punishable by fines and jail time. The city has an ordinance, 37 years old, which prohibits people from sitting, lying and sleeping “upon any street, sidewalk or public way.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that this ordinance is cruel and unusual punishment. According to Judge Kim McLane, “punishing involuntary sitting, lying or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter,” is unconstitutional, as long as the city does not have enough beds. Despite this, Los Angeles can still regulate certain times and places as off-limits.

One judge dissented, writing that the ordinance did not punish homelessness, but instead behavior that can be committed by both those with and without homes – which is fairly ridiculous.

Sure, it’s possible that Jane Homeowner might suddenly decide she wants to spend the night on a park bench or huddled in an alleyway – but if she has a nice, safe bed under a roof in a place she owns or rents, this is unlikely. Most homeless people aren’t sleeping in public places because they want to; they’re there because they haven’t got anywhere else to go.

Since Los Angeles, like many other cities, does not have enough beds in homeless shelters to provide for the needs of the population, banning them from sleeping in public places is akin to asking them to simply disappear. Now, with this court ruling, the city is going to have to tackle the problem head-on, instead of sweeping it under the gentrification rug.

Under the ordinance, people could be incarcerated for as long as six months and/or fined up to $1,000. Most homeless people don’t have this much money – if they did, they probably wouldn’t be sleeping on the streets – and so fining them is useless.

Jailing them might keep them off the streets, but it costs money and doesn’t make any provisions for finding them a home once their sentences end. This money could be better used to build more shelters or provide more job training to homeless or at-risk people.

As much of a victory as this ruling is for basic human right, it is only a partial, temporary solution. Ultimately, there need to be more shelters, and these shelters need to do more than provide beds. They need to provide jobs, counseling or training – anything that will work to reduce the number of people who need shelters at all.

The system as it stands now is broken, not just in Los Angeles but across the world. Hopefully, rulings like this will force people to try to fix it, rather than ignore it.