Homeless Person’s Bill of Rights and Fairness Act Introduced to Assembly

Berkeley Daily Planet ^ | 12-4-12 | unattributed

[smokingfrog]

Building off of Rhode Island’s community effort, a coalition of West Coast organizations is working with Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) to introduce a Homeless Persons’ Bill of Rights and Fairness Act today.

The bill’s author, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, said, “We need to stop criminalizing the behavior of people who have nowhere else to turn. People who are in need of mental health services or who have lost their jobs and their homes are being told, ‘Move along or go to jail.’ The Homeless Persons’ Bill of Rights begins to give us a framework for appropriate approaches to protecting our communities and those who are vulnerable.”

“From the Ugly Laws of the mid-19th century—which made it a crime to have a visible disability in public—through the anti-Okie law of the Great Depression—which made it a crime for poor people to enter the state—up through the present, state and local governments have used unjust laws to punish or conceal poor people,” said Paul Boden, Organizing Director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP). “But as long as these laws have existed, there’s been resistance. We’re introducing this bill of rights because we believe that the time has come to address the wrongs and most importantly stop them from ever happening again.”

[hattend]

Ammiano should visit the town he supposedly represents.

Take a hike to Fisherman’s Wharf, Tom. Bums are everywhere. smells like a toilet.

Open the looney bins again.

[CIB-173RDABN]

Compassion is easy when you force others to pick up the tab.

[Resolute Conservative]

You have the right to stay off my property.

[Buddy Sorrell]

San Francisco is a dung heap because of “coalitions”. On a business trip to SF years ago, I had the misfortune of staying in a hotel near Union Square. After a dinner in Chinatown, my colleague asked me if we were getting closer to the hotel. I assured him that we were because the stench of urine was getting stronger.

[Navy Patriot]

We need to house the homeless in Ammiano’s home, and give ‘em the “right” to do as they wish there.

[DH]

I think this is a wonderful bill.

I hope they include the part that gives the bums the right to go into any liberal’s house and do what they wish with it.

After all, it’s the “bleeding heart” liberals that think this bill is a good thing after all.

[Venturer]

The Homeless now have more rights than most white men do.

[slightlyovertaxed]

An unfortunate truth is that a disproportionate number of homeless are mentally ill and not on drugs. Someone with untreated schizophrenia or a Vietnam vet with severe PTSD can't hold a job or generate meaningful income. Even with treatment, their ability to be part of normal society is incredibly limited.

What do we as society do for people who can't help themselves?

[edcoil]

What do we as society do for people who can’t help themselves?

Not pay the government vast fortunes of our money to do nothing. Which BTW got us here in the first place.

paying unionized government hacks lifetime pay is a failed approach.

[UCANSEE2]

What do we as society do for people who can't help themselves?

Recognize that this is a problem that will never be 'solved'. There will always be those that cannot or will not help themselves.

Our best bet is to keep the government out of it.

[smokingfrog]

Some of them need to be institutionalized. But that’s difficult to do unless you can prove they’re a danger to themselves or others.

[dsrtsage]

[hattend]

Someone with untreated schizophrenia or a Vietnam vet with severe PTSD can't hold a job or generate meaningful income. Even with treatment, their ability to be part of normal society is incredibly limited.

[hattend]

Someone with untreated schizophrenia or a Vietnam vet with severe PTSD can't hold a job or generate meaningful income. Even with treatment, their ability to be part of normal society is incredibly limited.

Yet they stay in one of the most expensive cities in the US...go figure.

[slightlyovertaxed]

Recognize that this is a problem that will never be 'solved'. There will always be those that cannot or will not help themselves. Our best bet is to keep the government out of it.

You then run into problems like the one in NYC, where an non-institutionalized person with schizophrenia pushed a woman onto the subway tracks. This was back in 1999 (see: Kendra's Law), but it has happened repeatedly. There is some suggestion that the guy who died yesterday was also pushed by someone who is mentally ill.

The problem is a lot bigger than I'm making it seem. Very bluntly: we as a society have no idea what to do with the mentally ill. Our jails are the last dumping ground for people so out of it that they can't function. We can't drug them without their consent (and for many, the drugs don't work, stop working, or are so dangerous they leave patients in ruins). We can't toss them into institutions, especially since many facilities are bursting to capacity and it's expensive. But we can't let them just roam around being a threat to themselves and others.

If the government stays out of it, who is in charge of keeping a legal adult who is out of his mind from obeying the voices and killing an innocent? It's not his fault he has schizophrenia. Same thing for people with dementia or severe PTSD.

[slightlyovertaxed]

How, exactly, does a homeless person with a mental illness travel safely from Providence to, I don’t know, somewhere in the midwest where the cost of living is less? Boxcar riding is dangerous for the sane and healthy. Do they take a bus, assuming that they’re lucid enough to plan a route? Once they go there, how do they apply for disability or a job? Remember that you’re talking about someone who has short periods of sanity followed by longer periods of insanity.

[hattend]

They get there the same way they got to SF in the first place.

Or are all these vagrants that wander the streets of SanFran locally grown?

[slightlyovertaxed]

Probably locally grown or they gravitated to a big city before the disease completely took them down. Remember that schizophrenia tends to strike in adulthood. You may have a regular guy who, in his 20's, completely falls apart.

In NYC and other major cities, it may be that they're shipped in from surrounding areas into a jail or hospital for temporary treatment, then dumped onto the street. Also, think of it in terms of poverty and population density:

NYC is one of the most expensive cities in the world. However, if you go away from the middle, you are in the ghetto where there aren't as many services and a massive population. The combination makes it likely that you have homeless, locally-grown people who spread throughout the city by jumping turnstiles and riding the subways. It's warm down there, people are always throwing out food, and the police tend to turn a blind eye unless things get violent.

[slightlyovertaxed]

FYI, this is something that I’ve studied and read about. If you want to know more, read the book “Crazy”. It’s written by a guy who watched his bipolar, delusional son go through the Miami-Dade prison and mental health care system. It’s a good, if somewhat dramatic, read that shows how screwed up everything can get.