How Washington Cities Turned Being Homeless into a Crime

May 15, 2015

Students in the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project, led by Professor Sara Rankin, at the Seattle University School of Law, have just published four issue briefs on homelessness in Washington. Among their findings are:

Washington cities are increasingly criminalizing homelessness. Since 2000, communities have enacted laws that create over 288 new ways to punish visibly poor people for surviving in public space.
Millions of dollars could be saved if cities would redirect funds used for enforcement of these laws toward affordable housing.
Homelessness and poverty disproportionately impact people of color, women, LGBTQ youth, individuals with mental illness, and veterans.
The greater the income gap between the rich and the poor, the higher the rates of enforcement of these laws.
Modern anti-homeless ordinances share the same form, phrasing, and function as historical discrimination laws, such as Jim Crow.

One of the issue briefs, written by Justin Olson, Scott MacDonald and Sara Rankin, is entitled Washington’s War on the Visibly Poor: A Survey of Criminalizing Ordinances & Their Enforcement. The abstract below demonstrates the comprehensive nature of the work done by these clinic students, making a major contribution to local and national advocacy to address poverty.Abstract:

Throughout the country, cities increasingly enact laws that punish behaviors necessary for survival. For those without shelter, there is no alternative but to conduct these behaviors in public. Camping outdoors, sleeping, going to the bathroom, receiving food, sitting or lying down on sidewalks — these laws target homeless people either in practice or outright. But until now, no one knew how widespread these laws are throughout Washington State, or how they are being enforced. This brief answers these questions.

HRAP researchers surveyed the municipal codes of 72 cities across Washington to identify ordinances that essentially criminalize homelessness in each jurisdiction. From this survey, researchers created a chart tracking every ordinance they could find. Seven of the cities were selected as case studies for closer examination of the enforcement and citations of these ordinances. The findings reveal that homeless criminalization exists regardless of where you live. From densely populated urban cities to scattered rural townships, city councils are increasingly passing these laws, often drafting them in a way that raises serious legal and policy concerns about how Washington treats its most vulnerable residents.

This brief shines a spotlight on the problems with these laws: how they are written, how they impact the homeless community, and how easily cities can fall into the trap of vilifying already vulnerable populations in the name of safety and public health. This report shows that the problem of criminalizing homelessness, so often buried in municipal codes, is both widespread and systemic.