One way to criminalize poverty

As Barbara Ehrenreich pointed out:

What the Occupy Wall Streeters are beginning to discover, and homeless people have known all along, is that most ordinary, biologically necessary activities are illegal when performed in American streets — not just peeing, but sitting, lying down, and sleeping. While the laws vary from city to city, one of the harshest is in Sarasota, Florida, which passed an ordinance in 2005 that makes it illegal to “engage in digging or earth-breaking activities” — that is, to build a latrine — cook, make a fire, or be asleep and “when awakened state that he or she has no other place to live.”

It is illegal, in other words, to be homeless or live outdoors for any other reason. It should be noted, though, that there are no laws requiring cities to provide food, shelter or restrooms for their indigent citizens.

Homelessness: A living death

Related articles

• Occupy Wall Street brings homelessness into the open | Barbara Ehrenreich (guardian.co.uk)
• Barbara Ehrenreich on the Criminalization of Poverty [Casaubon’s Book] (scienceblogs.com)
• We’ve Made It a Crime to Be Poor (newser.com)
• Criminalizing Poverty: During Economic Crisis, New Laws Crack Down on America’s Poor, Homeless (tipggita32.wordpress.com)
• Obamanomics brings America’s homeless to their knees, in hopelessness (americanunion.wordpress.com)
• U.S. Cities Criminalize Homelessness, Violate Human Rights Agreements (huffingtonpost.com)
• U.S. Cities Criminalize Homelessness, Violate Human Rights. Poverty, Unemployment of War Empire.. (worldnewsrecord.wordpress.com)