Begging for Change
By kmaher Posted in User Blogs — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
I was a little surprised by this James Pinkerton column today, which rants about a federal judge in New York letting a bunch of vagrants out of jail.
The short story is that New York City police, prosecutors and courts have been locking up panhandlers using a law found unconstitutional in 1993. Pinkerton keys on this New York Times article, but the online version must be different from the print because there's nothing about the judge ordering anyone's release.
Regardless, the city's law 'n' order establishment was obviously off course here, so I'm not sure what else Pinkerton expected the judge to do.
The law at issue was tossed out in Loper v. New York City Police Department, which was decided by the 2nd Circuit and never heard by the Supreme Court.
My point in writing this is that I was under the impression the constitutionality of laws against begging, vagrancy and other public-nuisance-type behavior was pretty much settled in favor of vagrants and against the need to maintain public order. Apparently that's not the case in fact, although it's become the practice. It's just too much of a hassle, apparently, to write a law that conforms with Loper, because whether it does or not, some homeless or street-artist advocacy group will sue to have it overturned.
That's a shame. If you've been to Washington, D.C., lately, or Seattle or San Francisco or any other major city, you'll know why. Here in Denver, we've got a wonderful outdoor mall, about a mile long, that's heavily infested with panhandlers. Denver's such a left-wing community that this may be just fine and dandy with the populace. Ditto D.C. But uncertainty about the law is also partly to blame, along with the decision in the late 1970s to release thousands of people from institutionalized care if they were deemed marginally self-sufficient.
The irony here is that, had New York's courts and police not turned an inexplicably blind eye to the 2nd Circuit's ruling in Loper, it might have been impossible for Rudolph Giuliani to make the city liveable again. There's got to be a city council somewhere in America that prefers Giuliani's quality-of-life vision to the 2nd Circuit's -- and that's willing to go to court to defend it.
And then there's the question I ask often: How would the Loper judges fare if they were subject to retention elections? At that time in New York, not well, I'd think.
Cross-posted at Vote for Judges
as to the correlation between arrests for quality of life offenses - loitering, begging, vagrancy, etc. - and homelessness, but I do not believe it a stretch to think that many of those involved in panhandling are also in the homeless population. I would be interested to hear if someone has such information.
Assuming that there is a correlation, then we do indeed owe some of these folks more than a night in jail. Depending on which study one uses, something on the order of 600,000 to 750,000 Americans are homeless on any given night, and somewhere between 23 and 40 percent of them are veterans, the overwhelming majority of whom are suffering from PTSD, other mental disabilities, or substance abuse, or a combination thereof.
The VA has homeless programs which at present have a maximum capacity of 7,000 beds, clearly insufficient by any standard when the target population exceeds 250,000 in even the most optimistic scenarios.
Do panhandlers make us uncomfortable? They do, and they should. They remind us every day of the failure of successive administrations ranging back 40 years to deal appropriately with the treatment needs of returning veterans, particularly those veterans suffering from PTSD.
Perhaps we should save the jail cells for those officials who had no difficulty in finding the funds to send young Americans off to war, but found it "fiscally irresponsible" to fund the programs that would have provided proper treatment for them when they returned.
that you are routinely unable to find statistics but you quote them relentlessly in your posts.
are those that relate to the number of homeless people who are arrested for quality of life crimes, and I clearly identified them as such.
The statistics concerning veteran components of the homeless population, and the capacity of available treatment facilities, come stright from the VA site and a those of a couple of veteran and/or homeless advocacy organizations. You want cites, I'll be glad to go back through them, but it would seem simpler if you just Google "homeless veteran statistics" and then take your pick of the studies.
I am surprised that you, as a former infantry officer, aren't more familiar with the statistics than I am. Some of those folks out there are possibly your former comrades-in-arms and one would think that that would generate a certain level of interest.
my familiarity with the statistics you use. The issue here, and on numerous other posts, is your reluctance to provide links to your statistics as a matter of common courtesy. And when one takes time to run down the facts one find that you have misstated them.
is whether begging should be treated as a criminal offense. The diarist seems to posit in the affirmative, and I disagree, based on my belief that many of those so engaged are veterans to whom we owe something other than a night in jail. Your views are unstated, and thus unknown.
In the unlikely event that you are interested in the information, here are a few starting points:
Department of Veteran Affairs:
http://www.va.gov/pressrel/hmlssfs.htm
House of Representatives: Statement of Rep. Rush D. Holt:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r109:FLD001:E00229
House Committee on Veteran Affairs: Statement of Rep. Chris Smith:
http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/schedule108/may04/5-18-04/csmith.html
Interagency Council on Homelessness
http://www.ich.gov/
Vietnam Veterans of America
http://www.vva.org/legiss/62499tes.htm
National Coalition for Homeless Veterans
http://www.nchv.org/background.cfm
A search on "homeless veteran statistics" results in 177,000 hits, so there is much more information available if you care for it.
laboring under the misapprehension that you set the rules here. You don't.
I am merely pointing out to you that common courtesy requires 1) a reference when you cite statistics and 2) that the stat be accurately stated. You failed on both counts which calls into question both your honesty and intelligence.
that you wish to make common courtesy the central concept in this thread, since it clearly a topic about which you have very little knowledge.
be surprised by quite a few things so there's no reason this should be different.
He's been firing with a 12 ga. for several weeks now; I fire back with a BB gun, and I am the one who gets a warning about board courtesy?
Folks who go back to Kos and crow (incorrectly) about challenging us on our home turf have their firing rights suspended.
This is a Republican site. It apparently is a surprise to you, along with much else, but that is the way it is. But if you won't take my word read the mission statement.
As such we can use large bore weapons and restrict you to spitwads. You seem to think you can come over here, crap in our sink, and we're supposed to enjoy the ambiance. It doesn't work that way. Were it up to me, you would have been vaporized some time ago but apparently you provide some degree of amusement to the senior editors with the death ray.
A poster on Kos said that someone from the left posting here was a troll, and I disagreed, and said that it was debate, and to be commended. That's crowing? I had assumed that you would want folks to come here and debate - perhaps I am wrong about that?
There have been several individuals from dKos who do come here to troll, and when they go back over to Kos and gloat, the more informed Kossacks generally beat them up for it. And I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. There was one very recently and I was about to jump on him/her, but thought it surplusage because several others did exactly that before I go to the end of the thread.
disagreeing with the contention that panhandlers should be incarcerated, on the grounds that many of them might well be veterans in need of and entitled to assistance, strays from the Republican philosophy?
From the 2004 Republican Party platform:
Combating Chronic Homelessness
We support efforts to end chronic homelessness by providing support services and housing for chronically homeless individuals. Although these individuals comprise roughly ten percent of the homeless population, they consume a disproportionately large share of all homeless emergency services because their housing, health, and other needs have not before been comprehensively addressed. By taking on the toughest cases, we can bring help and hope to individuals who may feel that society long ago left them behind.
http://www.gop.com/media/2004platform.pdf
From the News page of the GOP website:
Help for Homeless Veterans:
The Bush Administration has launched a $35 million program to provide permanent housing, health care, and other support services to our homeless veterans most in need.
http://www.gop.com/News/Read.aspx?ID=4555
It just seems ironic to me that people in such "enlightened", "progressive" communities as Denver, New York, Washington, and San Francisco express their concern for panhandlers by championing their unchecked release on to the streets.
On any other matter, these caring hearts would push for a costly government program to better the situation of the less fortunate, but when the choice is between offering help and simply freeing people to engage in behavior detrimental to themselves and the community, one can hear crickets chirping.
Perhaps this is simply an example of the divide between liberal and conservative ideologies, but I think it is more complex than that. An example:
My mother is no conservative. As a native of New York City, she always blamed Geraldo Rivera (however fairly) for the city's homeless problem. Why? Well, however well-intentioned, Rivera's expose as a young reporter on the horrendous Willowbrook State School on Staten Island resulted not in any constructive changes, but rather the closing of the hospital and the precipitous release of its patients on to the streets. Like I said, perhaps it is a bit unfair of her to place so much blame on a well-intentioned journalist, but this episode is illustrative of the old saying about good intentions paving a road to a bad place.
So, for what it's worth at this point, it seems as though the judges in the Loper case simply repeated the Willowbrook mistake, bringing down the hatchet on one solution with no alternative solution in sight. And a lot of people got needlessly hurt (or un-helped) in the process.
This isn't a subject I know much about, but am I way off base?