Five ‘Meanest’ Cities Selected Proposals To Criminalize Homelessness Are Noted

A national homeless advocacy group named Tucson one of five cities with the meanest streets for transients.

The fifth annual report by the nonprofit National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty selected cities based on the existence of ordinances or other “unique proposals” that try to criminalize homelessness.

Kelly Cunningham, the center’s staff attorney, said Tucson was selected because of a series of actions the City Council has taken in recent years. The city banned aggressive panhandling, made it illegal to sit or lie on sidewalks in commercial districts, shut down a homeless camp near the base of “A” Mountain and has plans to break up the downtown soup kitchen into smaller sites as part of a downtown revitalization.

The City Council also is considering whether to bar newspaper hawkers and homeless panhandlers from street medians.

Seattle was named one of the five meanest cities in 1994. Since then, it has built a downtown public hygiene center that provides free access to bathrooms, laundry machines and showers. Its voters also agreed to pay higher property taxes to subsidize housing, Cunningham said.

“Cities could be adopting laws designed to assist, rather than harass, homeless people and ensuring that homeless people are protected by police rather than singled out for law enforcement action,” she said.

Some homeless people agreed with the report.

“How can anybody tell you can’t sit on the sidewalk or stand in one spot for a long time? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of,” said a woman at a downtown park who goes by the name “Carrot.” She said she is houseless but not homeless - the Earth is her home.

Paul Gattone, director of the Southern Arizona People’s Law Center, said the City Council is trying to drive the homeless away so it won’t have to address the underlying causes of low wages, lack of affordable housing and unemployment.

Betty Lockhart, executive director of the Fourth Avenue Merchants Association, said the report wasn’t entirely fair. The ordinances, she said, were “necessary for our businesses. After all, this street is a business street, and while people standing around and talking are not a threat to consumers, people sitting and lying around do intimidate people coming to shop.”

But the community has not turned its back, she said. The association hired 80 homeless people to help with the street fair. MEANEST CITIES Atlanta: has sweeps and crackdowns to move homeless along in the downtown area. Chicago: arrests and prosecutes homeless people for panhandling in certain areas. New York City: nightly sweeps continue. San Francisco: issued 16,000 “quality of life” violations, the majority of which went to homeless. Tucson: proposed a plan to privatize the sidewalks, which would allow business owners to keep homeless people off them. Source: National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty