An unfortunate trend in cities around the country over the past 25 years has been to turn to the criminal justice system to respond to people living in public spaces.  This trend includes measures that target Homeless persons by making it illegal to perform life-sustaining activities in public.  These measures prohibit activities such as sleeping/camping, eating, sitting, and begging in public spaces, usually including criminal penalties for violation of these laws. 

 This criminalization process involves making it illegal to sit, sleep in public places. The police sweep areas where the Homeless camp and drive them out all the while destroying their personal property, important documents and medication. This bulldozing of camps can and do put Homeless people in a crises situation causing them great harm oh yes I know it beatifies the inner city and creates a false impression that everything is ok but what does it do to our humanity. When you go to confession do you also say that you condoned the bulldozing of a Homeless camp and totally destroyed the lives of countless people?

 Another thing that is happening is laws are targeting peoples and agencies that feed the in public places. They are limiting the numbers of people that can be fed and placing other restriction on them.

  There are some cities in this country that are down right evil in there methods of dealing with the homeless but there are others that are setting a standard for decent treatment. Take San Diego, Ca for example they have created the nation's first Homeless Court Program which is a special Superior Court held at local shelters to resolve outstanding misdemeanor criminal cases. This makes a great deal of sense. How in the world do you give a ticket to a person that doesn't have any money?  When it goes to a warrant status and he is arrested this then goes against him when he applies for public housing or other services.

 I have seen here in Tucson Az the police rousting and moving along the Homeless in the parks whose only crime was that they wanted to get some sleep in the warmth of the sun after spending a night in the rain, cold or other in climate weather.

 Treating the homeless as such does not depreciate their numbers and it does not make them less visible because all the time we spend criminalizing them and treating them as less than human their numbers are increasing every year. What will we do then when there is no place to move them along to because the are every where?