Don’t stop at suspended

Thanks to Alfredo Llamedo for courageously forcing this city, with his sit-in and hunger strike, to re-visit our cruel “No Sit/No Lie” ordinance.

In bone-chilling cold, many people sleep on sidewalks, hungry, exhausted, ill, injured. We allow this situation to exist, and demonize those people by ignoring them, allowing police and security to harass them, jail and fine them.

How would you survive the reality of homelessness in Spokane?

Start your day literally on your feet.

Walk to a place that might serve breakfast or a cup of coffee; walk and walk and walk until you find another meal; walk and walk and walk to pick up medicine or find a bathroom; walk and walk and walk till you find a dinner; walk and walk and walk to find shelter for the night, be it in a shelter or under a bridge.

You are not allowed to sit to rest anywhere outside.

Then you start all over the next day…

The concerns covered by that unconscionable law already exist in other law. This law only gives us permission to further torment people who have nowhere to turn.

Why has our City Council not repealed it? Not just suspended … repealed.

Marianne Torres

Spokane