Common-Sense Protections Soon to Be Enshrined in State Law
Invisible People: Pennsylvanian lawmakers are taking steps to preserve the protections that homeless people lost after the Grants Pass decision. A new bill soon to be introduced in the state legislature will restore the requirement for municipalities to provide alternate shelter to homeless residents before enforcing any punitive criminalization measures. The proposal is known as the Shelter First Act.
Shelter First Just Makes Sense
The lawmakers behind the Shelter First Act are asking Pennsylvanians a simple question: how can you punish someone for a crime they have no choice but to commit?
By criminalizing basic human activities like sitting or sleeping, the state is creating an unsolvable problem for anyone who can’t afford access to private spaces in which to do so. No one can go without sitting or sleeping 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And in most places, there is a severe lack of shelter space and housing options. So, they have no other choice but to sit and sleep in public, which has now become a crime.
The Shelter First Act is designed to prevent enforcement actions from taking place against individuals found living in public if there is no other “adequate alternative indoor space” available to them. It’s just common sense.
And before someone pops a blood vessel screaming about “wokeness gone too far,” remember that this is not a new development at all, but simply a return to the status quo that was in place for years before being overturned by the relatively recent Grants Pass decision of the Supreme Court. Before then, arresting and fining people for performing basic life-sustaining activities in public when they had nowhere else to do them was considered cruel and unusual punishment. The facts haven’t changed; it’s just that more people in power now seem to think that homeless people are deserving of such treatment.
Furthermore, it does not repeal any criminalization measure currently in place. It is simply a common-sense carve-out to prevent the punishment of people who were made criminals not by any action of their own, but by the decisions of the state.
Dignity for all Pennsylvanians
Sponsors of this bill have released a memo explaining its importance in upholding the dignity of all Pennsylvanians. The memo also says that, “People who are unsheltered are at increased risk for chronic disease, mental illness, substance use issues, and early death. The hardships experienced by people who are unsheltered, including increased incidence of chronic homelessness, are compounded when the only response of their governments is via criminal and civil penalties.“
Essentially, these state lawmakers would like you to keep in mind that excessive fines and punishments do nothing to help people get out of homelessness, and in fact, they keep many people stuck without housing for longer. For that reason, the most anti-homeless among us should also be the most vehemently opposed to criminalization measures that kick people when they’re down. They’re only making the problem worse for everyone. Unless, of course, you just like to see people get kicked.
The memo has another message for NIMBYs, and it’s that “Proper indoor shelter spaces are the best way to keep our public spaces available to the community and prevent undo burdens on our justice system with issues it is not equipped to address.”
Yes, giving people somewhere to go that’s better than a park bench will leave more park benches open for everyone, and it shouldn’t be too high a hurdle to clear.
Read full article on Pennsylvania Pushes Back Against Criminalization
