Last week Councilmember Tim Burgess proposed a new initiative to increase the safety of our city streets. While this obviously seems as if it is a no brainer, and will undoubtedly  be presented as one, the law specifically targeting panhandling will only provide the police with a tool to harass the poor, eliminate the face of visible poverty, and infringe on peoples basic right to survive.

The law as proposed would limit panhandling within 25 feet of an ATM, at intersections and highway on-ramps, after dark, and approaching people getting in or our of their car. While the cash machine and vehicle restrictions seem very reasonable there are already laws on the books that ban “aggressive panhandling.” These proposed provisions provide a “sensible approach” that seeks to draw public support for the measure. They make for tight talking points that make it seem that to oppose the law would be going against common sense.

The law will prevent many panhandlers from standing along roadways. Some may argue that eliminating panhandlers from an area is a good thing, but it needs to be understood that by banning an activity associated with extreme poverty does not eliminate the problem that made them poor in the first place. It makes those who drive the roadways feel better because they do not see evidence of poverty everyday on their way to work. This does not mean that they no longer exist.

The act of panhandling is protected under the First Amendment, but restrictions that limit time, place, and manner have been passed by many communities. All these restrictions do is criminalize actions that are associated with poverty, and in doing so limits their potential and opportunity.

These laws cannot be passed in the way they have been proposed. We will keep a close eye on the developments. In the mean time we need to set the tone of this debate. Send e-mails to Tim Burgess’s office (tim.burgess@seattle.gov) let him now what you think of the restraining order he wants to put on the poor. Write letters to the editor at the Seattle Times (opinion@seattletimes.com) who have whole heartily supported this measure multiple times. Sign up for our action alerts to stay up to date.

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.

“Tent Cities Rise Across the Nation” by Evelyn Nieves. The Associated Press shot this article off to nearly every media source in the nation today, from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to CNN. It describes the phenomenal number of tent cities rapidly appearing in many major U.S. cities as sub-prime foreclosure’d middle class suddenly find themselves members of the homeless class.

Our own Tim Harris, RCOP founder and Executive Director at Real Change News, was interviewed and quoted with several other major advocacy leaders:

“What’s happening in Seattle is what’s happening everywhere else — on steroids,” said Tim Harris, executive director of Real Change, an advocacy organization that publishes a weekly newspaper sold by homeless people.

“Homeless people and their advocates have organized three tent cities at City Hall in recent months to call attention to the homeless and protest the sweeps — acts of militancy, said Harris, “that we really haven’t seen around homeless activism since the early ’90s’.”

Welcome to RCOP!