City’s homeless plan is missing compassion
At City Hall, Mayor Sylvester Turner touts his “comprehensive plan” and “holistic solution” for ending homelessness. A block away, the homeless tell me the only plan is to hide them, criminalize them and discourage people from helping them.
I volunteer with Houston Food Not Bombs, a group with 25 years of experience in the streets. For the past decade, we have been sharing healthy vegetarian meals with 120-plus hungry people by the Central Library four nights a week.
Before 2012, anyone could bring leftovers to any number of people in public, but former Mayor Annise Parker criminalized that. There are also laws against most things the homeless do. They can’t ask anyone for money within 8 feet of a parking meter, transit facility, fuel pump, outdoor restaurant, etc., or look food in garbage cans. Between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., it’s illegal to sleep, sit or put a bag on the sidewalk (ordinances of the type that the Department of Justice has referred to as “cruel and unusual”).
Turner led passage of additional laws against sleeping in a tent or box, panhandling and accumulating more personal property than would fit in a cube 3 feet on all sides. Turner seems unconcerned with constitutional protections, and accordingly, the ACLU is suing.
Turner also asked our group to move from the Central Library to a parking lot under a loud freeway overpass on a service road with no mappable address.
Next, he launched a campaign with, as he described, “50 faith leaders.” Money that could have been spent on helping the homeless is instead being spent on ads and billboards to discourage donating to panhandlers. You don’t have to be a “faith leader” to know that Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc., exhort their followers to give to the poor and needy.
Turner’s argument — that giving food to the homeless only enables them — is nonsense. Many homeless people aren’t dangerous, just antisocial and better left alone in a tent. If forced to interact with others, they would likely get into conflicts and end up in jail. Food insecurity is not a tool that can be wielded to help anyone; it only increases crimes of desperation, theft and fights over food.
Making the homeless more desperate won’t encourage them to go to shelters. Even if Houston had enough shelter beds for all the homeless (and it doesn’t even come close), the homeless are quite clear about their reasons for disliking shelters, many of which may impose religious beliefs, reject gay or unmarried couples and families, are not safe, are infested with bedbugs, provide miserable and unhealthy food, and trash people’s possessions. Many homeless people criticize those running shelters for prioritizing their own financial gain and religious agenda over the needs of the homeless.
If you’re wondering why the mayor and the “faith leaders” promote these cruel laws and campaigns, follow the money. Real-estate interests and campaign donors have much more access and influence than homeless people. By enforcing anti-homeless laws more strictly in wealthy areas than poorer areas, the city transfers homeless populations to jail or to less densely populated neighborhoods (where it’s harder to find food, work and services).
These policies have had an immediate effect in the streets. Food Not Bombs has seen record-breaking numbers, but meanwhile, the Coalition For The Homeless of Houston / Harris County claims to have witnessed a reduction in homelessness by 57 percent. The reason that statistics like this are so distorted and useless is that homeless service nonprofits are federal HUD grant recipients; they have to show success on paper.
The mayor’s so-called solutions for homelessness are nothing of the sort. As he is well aware, there’s no budget to house Houston’s homeless in any compassionate way. We must not allow the mayor or anyone else to use the empty promise of “ending homelessness” as an excuse to discourage or criminalize donating to the homeless, force services on the homeless against their will, or make laws against homelessness. We ask all Houstonians to join us in saying so loudly. We also welcome folks to join us — Food Not Bombs needs more volunteers to help us meet the needs of the growing number of hungry people in this manufactured crisis.
Cooper volunteers with Food Not Bombs and plays drums for Free Radicals.