Crime against homeless articles
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Editorial: The Supreme Court cannot allow homelessness to be a crime
If you are homeless and have nowhere to go — neither a temporary shelter bed nor a permanent home — can you be fined or, worse, jailed for sleeping on a sidewalk? Or is that cruel and unusual punishment? That’s the question that the Supreme Court wrestled with Monday when it heard oral arguments in the case of Grants Pass vs. Johnson regarding the Oregon city's ordinance allowing police to fine or jail homeless people for sleeping outside. A federal district court ruled that the law violated the...
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Will the Supreme Court make homelessness a crime?
Helen Cruz has been a resident of Grants Pass, Oregon, for roughly four decades, but for the last five of those years, she’s had no home in which to live. She’s not alone. Her small mountain town with a population of 39,189 provides no public homeless shelters. She is among up to 600 people experiencing […]
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A year after Jordan Neely's death, a push to make attacking NY's homeless a hate crime
Jordan Neely was killed last May after a fellow subway rider put him in a chokehold. The Homeless Protection Act has foundered in the state Legislature for more than a decade, but advocates are hoping to push the bill amid a new focus on homelessness. [ more › ]