More progress in making homelessness a crime

The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty has a new report on the rapidly growing number of municipalities that have passed ordinances that criminalize homelessness. Living on the streets, even when there are insufficient shelter beds, is now punishable with steep fines. Since people with little or no money lack the ability to pay those fines, fees for late payment will be tacked for good measure. There is something rotten in the soul of America. 

I cannot fathom followers of Christ finding this the least bit acceptable:

There has been an increase in laws criminalizing homelessness since our last report in 2011. While the increase is seen for nearly every surveyed category of criminalization law, the most dramatic uptick has been in city-wide bans on fundamental human activities. This increase in city-wide bans shows that the nature of criminalization is changing and that cities are moving toward prohibiting unavoidable, life sustaining activities throughout entire communities rather than in specific areas, effectively criminalizing a homeless person’s very existence.

We are talking about scripture worthy mean-spiritedness. 

“‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 

Ezekiel 16:49

Not only are we not helping the poor and needy, but we are increasing their burdens by making it illegal to be homeless and not have a shelter bed. May the Lord have mercy on our very soul.