Kick ‘Em Out, Shove ‘Em Out, Way Out!

By Cindy Gomez
Editor

Throughout history the weakest and poorest people always get the short end of the stick. While the top five percent of society, what most people would call the best and brightest, get everything. A perfect example is the recent bailout of financial institutions. These bad actors should have gotten their comeuppance for their financial blunders, but instead walked away scot-free. And we footed the bill.

The wealthiest one percent of the country enjoy the greatest tax benefits, all the better to get richer with. And corporations now enjoy the privileges of humans with the purchasing power of superhumans.

Meanwhile, the number of unemployed keeps rising as does the number of people lined up in food pantries and homeless shelters. That’s bad enough! But now there’s a new lower low for many states. Kicking the homeless while they’re down!

Georgia was criticized for cleaning out its homeless population in Atlanta during the Olympic games. China did the same, as did Mexico and, more recently, South Africa during the World Cup. This is common practice for governments that want to look attractive for a world-class event. They want visitors to see only what is inviting. I guess we’re supposed to appreciate that we’re not subjected to seeing the poorest of their populations.
 
It is now illegal to be homeless in many states and municipalities. Yes, illegal, as in haul-you-to-jail illegal. And if you are arrested enough times, prison time. It sounds far-fetched that some communities would have such black hearts that they would criminalize poverty. But it’s not a new idea. Many cities all around the country have vagrancy laws.

But the recent wave of laws passed to criminalize homelessness is evil. In Florida you can be fined up to $300 for sharing your lunch with someone suspected of being homeless. Homeless people in Colorado can be arrested for “illegal camping.”

Cities all around the country like Miami, Atlanta and Cleveland have found ways to punish the poor and anyone who tries to help them. In order to discriminate against the poor or homeless, city leaders really have to be creative.
They can restrict the use of public space, make zoning restrictions, limit the numbers of people helped by charitable organizations, and create food safety restrictions, to name a few. Wonder if anyone has already thought of a three strikes law for the homeless. That way, when they go to the pokey too many times they can simply be kept there indefinitely.

There are so many roadblocks facing homeless individuals already, it hardly seems necessary to create more obstacles for them to survive. But even locally, the obstacles are there. If you have a poor rental history, or no rental history, it makes it kind of tough to get a place to live! Zoning rules make it difficult to house the homeless even when there are people willing to give them shelter. Limited shelter space does not help either. Add to that the complaints and arrests for vagrancy and trespass. It’s a lot to deal with when your day is spent figuring out where you are going to lay your head.

Some cities are proactively changing this trend. Take Fort Myers, Fla., for instance. They scrapped an ordinance aimed at restricting food sharing, and instead engaged the community to create a mobile food pantry.

As a community, we here in Fargo-Moorhead can start small, examining the impact that local policies have on the homeless and poor. We can show surrounding communities our capacity for compassion. 

Whoops!
We’ve been advised by the Forum’s editor that on page 8 of the July 22 HPR, a photo of the Gooseberry Park Players that was taken by Forum photographer Dave Wallis is wrongly attributed to the play reviewer, Roland Finger.

Indeed the photo was taken by Dave Wallis and does belong to the Forum. Unauthorized use of such photos is a violation of copyright and not something we condone or would ever intentionally allow. We brief our interns very carefully about copyright and despite our precautions, one of them submitted the photo in question.

Although regrettable situations like this sometimes arise, we are proud that we provide internships to students from all four of the local colleges, and that we give them enough responsibility to make mistakes and see the consequences.

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