Imagine this: you walk down the streets of the city and notice that many homeless individuals are being forced to leave their tents and current living situations. What are your immediate thoughts? Do you think they deserve to be seen as criminals for not having a place to live?
Homelessness is one of the most crucial issues in the United States today. Many people live without a roof, experience financial difficulties, and suffer health issues due to the rising costs of housing, unemployment, and lack of access to healthcare or support services. As they struggle to find a way to live in society, these individuals also experience being perceived as criminals by the public. This heightens the problem even more, trapping the issue of homelessness in a small box that seems impossible to fix.
Because, the truth is, the criminalization of homelessness exists. There are laws that prohibit sleeping, camping, and sitting in public places, as well as effectively punishing many individuals for not having nowhere to live. Fines, citations, and arrest warrants lead to criminal records that create barriers to many opportunities for a better life. When cities put these laws in effect, this traps many people in an impossible situation. If there is no access to affordable housing and shelter spaces, where would they go? And most importantly, it does not help that laws and policies portray these individuals as criminals in our society.
In many ways, criminalization allows punishments to happen to people who have no control over their circumstances. Instead of finding solutions to the problem, the act of criminalization worsens it by creating barriers that make it even more challenging for people to get out of being homeless.
My final point is, criminalization allows the society to utilize resources on law enforcement and containment instead of supporting and finding solutions, such as funding for affordable housing, free universal healthcare, and employment opportunities. It is important that we find ways to end the criminalization of homelessness and address the root causes to find a helpful solution.
To learn more about how criminalization affects homeless individuals and think about what you can do to end it, click here.
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