A Dream Denied: The Criminalization of the Homeless in U.S. Cities

BACKGROUND: In Nashville, the lack of affordable housing, a living wage, and health care coverage is resulting in increasing numbers of people who are forced to seek emergency shelter or live in the streets.?? At the same time, a tremendous influx of tourists, and downtown workers and residents, is creating class warfare with the homeless.?? Associations such as the Downtown Partnership (DP), www.nashvilledowntown.com, and the Urban Residents Association (URA), http://www.urbanresidents.com/, have advocated for a reactive approach to this class conflict by demanding a police crackdown on those they consider to be disinvestments in downtown.?? The life sustaining activities of poor people who live, work, and are forced to survive in the urban core are considered injurious to the ???Quality of Life??? of downtown.??

The police department has responded to the URA and DP with an unwritten but well advertised campaign that has been interchangeably termed the ???Homelessness Initiative,??? and the ???Quality of Life??? Initiative.?? The Quality of Life Initiative mandates zero tolerance of activities that are deemed detrimental to the quality of life of the downtown, specifically: sleeping, eating, sitting, public intoxication, and begging.?? In the last year, the Metro Sheriff???s Office has documented that approximately 12 homeless people were arrested for the above mentioned life-sustaining (accept of course, public intoxication) activities.
According to the Public Relation???s Office of the Metro Police Department:

???The Quality of Life Initiative began June 13, 2007.?? It involves undercover officers downtown and along the West End corridor.?? Data shows that officers have arrested 91 unique persons 113 times while working the initiative.?? These figures go through Friday, Aug. 3, 2007.??

In their criminal history in Davidson County, these 91 individuals have been arrested 4,397 times on 6,860 charges, and spent a total of 21,339 days in jail since March of 2000. Using a jail cost estimate of $55/day, this adds up to $2.1 million (which is only the Sheriff???s portion of the expense). When reviewing the 4,397 arrests, 2,117 resulted in a conviction.???

According to a Channel 5 story on this same police report:

???most of the crimes are misdemeanors like public intoxication, trespassing, disorderly conduct and theft of property. Police said the numbers show they cannot tackle the city's homeless problem by themselves. Lt. Brian Johnson said judges need to go beyond throwing people in jail.???

The ??Nashville Homeless Power Project is deeply concerned about the incarceration of homeless people for life-sustaining activities. We are in dialogue with the Metro Police Department and Sheriff???s Office in the hopes of articulating the ineffectiveness of their current policy as a crime fighting mechanism, and effective use of tax payer dollars.

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Meanwhile, the Nashville Downtown Partnership, recovering from their failed efforts to create an anti-panhandling ordinance, has developed what they call ???a compromise??? with a major education campaign called ???Please Help, Don???t Give??? Panhandling is not the solution.??? The DP ??has contracted with the Center for Non Profit Management, http://www.cnm.org/, to help them implement this PR campaign in the business and downtown resident community.

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THE SOLUTION

The NHPP believes that the primary solution is an investment in housing, with outreach and support services, and not continued issuing of citations, arrests, and jailing.?? To this end, the Nashville Homeless Power Project has identified several models for addressing issues related to homelessness, that have been effective in other parts of the country:

MODEL 1: HOUSE???EM DON???T JAIL???EM

In Charlotte, North Carolina???downtown businesses, advocates and homeless collaborated to identify the 50 most chronically homeless individual and repeat offenders.?? This team targeted these individuals with social workers with the purpose of facilitating access to services and housing for these individuals.??

MODEL 2: BREVARD COUNTY (Fort Lauderdale) POLICE DEPARTMENT A MODEL AGENCY:

According to the website of the Brevard County Police Department:

???Strict enforcement and arrests became a short-term resolution to the immediate symptom of the growing social problem of homelessness. The residential and business community demanded immediate and forceful police action believing that the problem was resolved with the arrest. In reality, the homeless would spend a day or two in jail before being discharged back into the community with a "time served" sentence and the cycle would start again.???

The Fort Lauderdale Model: Police Response to Homelessness

A)?????? Police Department has clearly articulated policy stating that homelessness is not a crime.

B)???????? Police / Homeless Taskforce ??? team of street officers trained in issues of homelessness and with access to available services and housing.

C)?????? Homelessness 101- implemented in Brevard County, the Nashville Homeless Power Project has trained almost every police cadet since January 2005.?? The Power Project is proud of this partnership with the Metro Police Academy and is currently developing a proposal with the Police Department to expand this to all existing officers as well as the Fire Department.