The fight for more affordable low-income housing is not new. It’s a struggle that has been going on for decades, but an aspect that seems often overlooked is the question of where people turn if there is no affordable housing available.
This is where the Stop The Sweeps campaign begins. We are here to fight for the right to exist outside, to live without being harassed by the police for the crime of being poor. Shelter space is limited, and it doesn’t provide a space where every person can feel safe; thus camping outdoors becomes the alternative.
However, we are by no means the first, or the only group to challenge laws that criminalize the poor for sleeping outside. Here are a few brief examples of other places that have challenged similar laws in their own cities:
In Eureka, California, Tracy Herrin is currently fighting in court to overturn the city’s anti-camping laws as unconstitutional.
The Oregon Law Canter is currently fighting Portland’s own camping laws in court.
In Santa Barbara, California, the ACLU is in the midst of its own court case regarding to camping laws.
The ACLU has had more luck in Laguna Beach, California, where an ACLU lawsuit brought the city to retract is camping laws before the case even made it court.
In the1962 court case Robison V. California, the US Supreme Court ruled that the “criminalization of being” constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, thus violating the eighth amendment.
If there is no affordable low-income housing, or shelter space available that allows a person to feel safe, then what alternative is there to sleeping outside? Sleep is a biological necessity, and by denying the poor the right to this, they are denying them the right to be. This is criminalizing a fundamental aspect of being homeless.
We will continue to fight to end these discriminatory practices as well as work to bring affordable housing to Seattle. Until every person has a roof over their heads where they feel safe, secure and empowered, there is work to be done.
Join us in December for our annual Camp Out on city hall to tell the city that we wont stand for anything less than housing for all and the decriminalization of being poor in Seattle.