We have officially joined the bandwagon.
Mississippi has joined the list of states that are doing their level best to make homelessness illegal.
There is just such a bill making its way through the legislature…..
Two pieces of legislation aiming to limit where homeless people can sleep and where they can solicit donations from the public have advanced in the Mississippi House of Representatives.
On Tuesday, the House Judiciary A Committee passed two bills, House Bill 1197 and 1203, respectively. Combined, they would require any person soliciting for money or anything of value in a roadway to acquire a permit with a local police department and also prohibit them from “camping on public property.”
“It’s a safety issue,” said Rep. Shanda Yates, I-Jackson. “We limit (HB 1197) to just roadways. We’re not talking about sidewalks or any other areas with that. It’s literally just the roadways and the median. It is a public safety issue.”
…
HB 1197 states: “‘Solicitation or solicit’ means to request money or anything of value as a donation or contribution while standing, sitting or positioned in any manner on any road, street, highway median, traffic island or highway intersection; or to request any other thing of value in exchange for any goods, wares, merchandise or thing of value while standing, sitting or positioned in any manner on any road, street, highway median, traffic island or highway intersection.”
(clarionledger.com)
To help understand….what is homelessness?
In a nutshell:
- A homeless person is one who is without a home, often one who is living on the streets. The term “homeless” and “homelessness” are most commonly used in lay terms and by government agencies.
- An unhoused or houseless person is one who has no physical address, whether they live on the streets, in a tent or have temporary lodging at a shelter or other location.
- An unsheltered person is one who is without shelter, for instance a tent or other place to get out of the elements.
- Housing insecurity happens when a person does not have stable or adequate housing, including those who are being evicted or regularly come up short when paying their monthly bills.
Here are the stats on the Mississippi homeless…..if anyone cares….
https://www.wjtv.com/news/state/mississippi-has-lowest-rate-of-homelessness-in-us/
Where did all this recent hatred of the homeless originate…..
In June 2024, the US Supreme Court made this promise much easier to keep by overturning a lower court’s decision on criminalizing homelessness. Grants Pass, Oregon, where the case originated, had been punishing the unhoused with fines ranging from $295 to $1,250 and 30 days in jail. Ed Johnson was the initial lawyer who successfully argued this practice was unconstitutional. But after the Supreme Court weighed in, Grants Pass now was able to resume this practice. Other cities are likely to do the same.
Trump has promised to get the homeless off the streets…..and so it begins….
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
That could be me in a year or so, maybe sooner. – Ric
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The way things are going you will not be alone. chuq
So in step No. 1, Trump decides to get the homeless off the streets and I am thinking that in step No.2, he will generate hordes of newly homeless people with all the rats assed executive orders designed to remove any and all forms of help to the poor, the indigent, the underprivileged, the middle class, the sick, the lame, the mentally challenged…the undocumented, ethnic minorities…you get the drift….
The law you mention here is not as bad as some of the other similar laws that are on the books in at least 150 other jurisdictions…. in those places it not only makes criminals out of the homeless but it also makes criminals out of anybody who dares to help a homeless person by giving them food, clothing, shelter, money or anything else that will ease their suffering.
But…. but….. America is a Christian country. Aren’t Christians supposed to… Oh, fuck it.
There are real Christians and then there are Christian Nationalists… Real Christians are the ones that obey Jesus, Christian Nationalists are an illusion created by the anti-christ to deceive even the elect it possible…and it appears to be doing a fairly good job at this point….
So will Mississippi if there are more than one arrest….3 time loser thing…….we have a bit of the ‘helpers’ being harassed and even given citations so more punishment will come. chuq
My wife and the charity she volunteers with deal with this kind of thing all the time. Same thing is happening here. Not at the state level, but a lot of towns/cities are adopting ordinances that basically make it illegal to be homeless. We had one situation a year or two ago here in my town. A young fellow had just been released from jail for a non-violent offense, petty theft or something like that. One of the conditions of his release was he could not leave the county. He had no home, no family, no friends, nothing, and the county just dumped him on the street. This county has no homeless shelters at all. For a time we were able to give them vouchers for a local motel, but it had been sold and demolished so that option was gone. When we found him he was trying to live in a tent, in the middle of January, with temperatures around -20, behind the grocery store where he’d just got a job. Poor guy was half frozen. Nearest place we could find shelter for him was a homeless shelter in the next county, but if he left the county to go there, he’d go straight back to jail. Finally a sheriff’s deputy just took him to the shelter in the next county and took full responsibility and apparently some strong language was used the next day when the sheriff had a little chat with the local judge over how this poor fellow was dealt with.
If they criminalize people camping on public property, they’re going to be ticketed, fined, and because they don’t have the money to pay the fines, they’ll end up being arrested, thrown into the court system. They don’t have the money to pay court costs, processing fees, and all the other garbage fees they tack on. So they get in even more trouble, get arrested again… This solves nothing. All it does is end up putting people who already have no money into debt with fines and court fees, and now a criminal record, and they still have nowhere to go.
Locally they’ve been trying to pass ordinances that would even prohibit churches from opening their doors when the weather is cold so these people don’t freeze to death. And, as John has pointed out, also trying to criminalize the mere act of providing them with food or other assistance.
On the other hand I have a lot of sympathy for the business people who have their sidewalks blocked, the parents who find the parks they want to use with their children cluttered with tents, trash, feces and I don’t know what all else. We had one guy living in a dilapidated RV parked in a “Park ‘n Ride” location for weeks, dumping raw sewage onto the ground.
what’s the solution? I don’t know, but criminalizing it sure as hell isn’t it.
There are some horror stories…..I think this can be fixed if there was a bit more compassion from those in office.. chuq
When I worked for the police in London, a large part of their job was ‘moving on’ homeless beggars and street drinkers from ‘sensitive’ areas of the capital. They could also arrest them for various non-custodial offences, including ‘Public nuisance’. But all it did was to move the problem to the edges of the city, and if the homeless people were convicted and fined, they had no means of paying the fine anyway.
Best wishes, Pete.
That is the problem their solutions solve nothing….here they take some to the state border and send them to Alabama. chuq