The Homeless Bill of Rights (also Homeless Person's Bill of Rights and Acts of Living bill) refers to legislation protecting the civil and human rights of homeless people. These laws affirm that homeless people have equal rights to medical care, free speech, free movement, voting, opportunities for employment, and privacy. Legislation of this type is currently being debated at the state level in the United States. Over 120 organizations in five different states have shown public support for a Homeless Bill of Rights and are working towards its implementation. A Homeless Bill of Rights has become law in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Illinois and is under consideration by several other U.S. states, including Alaska, California, Delaware, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont.

Overview

While the wording and objectives of proposed bills vary from state to state, most proposed legislation seeks to protect these central rights for all unhoused individuals:

The right to use public spaces without fear of discrimination or harassment by law enforcement The right to vote on legislation The right to non-obstructively seek shelter, social services, legal aid, and education The right to privacy of property in public spaces The right to feel safe

This type of legislation is groundbreaking because it asserts that having a permanent and valid address is not a requisite for retaining basic rights. Many cities around the United States attempt to shift the problem of housing insecurity outside their jurisdiction by criminalizing homelessness. The criminalization of homelessness creates a vicious cycle of citations, fines, imprisonment, and reduced employability that further increases the difficulty of securing stable housing. States that implement a Homeless Bill of Rights protect individuals' rights to exist in public spaces, thus requiring that cities attempt to directly address the issue of housing insecurity. Moreover, while a Homeless Bill of Rights may not directly create significant change in the lives of unhoused individuals, it can facilitate a shift in the American perspective of homelessness and open up avenues for further discourse, programs, and legislation.

Criminalization of homelessness The criminalization of homelessness can be defined as the passage of laws or ordinances that prohibit sitting, sleeping, panhandling, sharing food, or religious practice in public spaces. Over half a million people are homeless on any given night in the United States, and a third of them are unsheltered. The growing issue of homelessness has been met with increasingly strict homeless legislation that seeks to reduce the visibility of unhoused individuals. These measures penalize individuals from performing necessary, life-sustaining practices (such as sleeping) outside of the private domain, and disproportionately impact unhoused populations who have no choice but to occupy public space for these activities.

Surveys by the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) have documented the impacts of such anti-homeless legislation by interviewing over 1,300 unhoused individuals. Of those interviewed, 81% of individuals reported being "harassed, cited or arrested for sleeping", 77% said they had been "harassed, cited or arrested for sitting or lying on the sidewalk", and 26% "knew of a safe place to sleep at night".

As The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty concludes its report on the "criminalization of homelessness":The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, "Criminalizing Crisis: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities ", November 2011.

Homeless Bills of Rights seek to amend local codes that outlaw loitering, vagrancy, sitting or lying on the sidewalk, begging, urinating, eating in public, and other behaviors that disproportionately affect homeless people. Most homeless advocates agree that the issue of homelessness can only be alleviated if there is a focus placed on changing laws that criminalize homelessness.

Controversy over legislation affecting the homeless

Opposition to legislature that supports the rights of unhoused individuals primarily comes from state and city officials, housed citizens, and varied business interests.Marek, Heather, and Katie Sawicki. Decriminalizing Homelessness: Why Right to Rest Legislation Is the High Road for Oregon. American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon, 2017, Decriminalizing Homelessness: Why Right to Rest Legislation Is the High Road for Oregon, aclu-or.org/en/publications/decriminalizing-homelessness-oregon. Increasing the visibility of homelessness as a public issue is an implicit goal of many Homeless Bill of Rights advocates. Visible homelessness, especially in the form of encampments, is typically regarded as a failure of the city or state. Most anti-homeless legislation seeks to mitigate the issue by moving unhoused individuals from one space to another and thus decrease the visibility of "undesirable" individuals in public spaces.

Business interests, represented by the California Chamber of Commerce, have called Assemblymember Tom Ammiano's Homeless Person's Bill of Rights a "job killer" which would create "costly and unreasonable mandates on employers.""Updated homeless 'bill of rights' passes CA legislative committee"; Sacramento Bee, 23 April 2013. Some municipalities and local politicians also oppose the laws, which impose state authority to overturn local regulations. San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener commented:

The Los Angeles Times suggested in an editorial that the Homeless Bill of Rights does not go far enough unless accompanied by economic resources allocated to provide housing.Editorial: "Homeless rights bill is wrong: There's no point in criminalizing homelessness. But a proposed 'bill of rights' is not the answer either. What the homeless really need are resources", Los Angeles Times, 11 January 2013. Joel John Roberts, CEO of People Assisting the Homeless, argued similarly that the Homeless Bill of Rights may be toothless and even enabling. Roberts writes:Joel John Roberts, "Is a Homelessness Bill of Rights Just a Bill of Goods?", Huffington Post, 22 June 2012.

Legislation in the United States The idea of a "Homeless Bill of Rights" has been discussed periodically in the US, and was presented formally by a group of New York City ministers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 1992.Hatchett, David. "Homeless 'Bill of Rights' to revive Dr. King's 'fading voice'", New York Amsterdam News, 11 January 1992; City Councilperson Peter Vallone introduced several versions of such a Bill in 1998, despite strong opposition from Mayor Rudy Giuliani.Glenn Thrush, "Vallone Plans to Beat Rudy on Homeless Rights Bill", City Limits, 31 August 1998.

Puerto Rico and some states have passed laws adding homeless people to their lists of groups protected against hate crimes."Hate Crimes Against the Homeless: An Organizing Manual for Concerned Citizens", National Coalition for the Homeless, January 2012.

Rhode Island Rhode Island was the first state in the U.S. to pass a "Homeless Bill of Rights". John Joyce, who was homeless for a period in his life, is responsible for the initial introduction of the bill. The Rhode Island law, S-2052, was ratified in the state of Rhode Island on June 21, 2012, and signed into law by Governor Lincoln Chafee on June 27. It amends the Rhode Island Fair Housing Act with wording intended to protect the rights of homeless people and prevent discrimination against them. It is the first U.S. state-level law designed to protect the rights of homeless people.

Excerpt from Rhode Island bill S-2052 34-37.1-3. Bill of Rights. – No person's rights, privileges, or access to public services may be denied or abridged solely because he or she is homeless. Such a person 1 shall be granted the same rights and privileges as any other resident of this state. A person experiencing homelessness: Has the right to use and move freely in public spaces, including, but not limited to, public sidewalks, public parks, public transportation and public buildings, in the same manner as any other person, and without discrimination on the basis of his or her housing status; Has the right to equal treatment by all state and municipal agencies, without discrimination on the basis of housing status; Has the right not to face discrimination while seeking or maintaining employment due to his or her lack of permanent mailing address, or his or her mailing address being that of a shelter or social service provider; Has the right to emergency medical care free from discrimination based on his or her housing status; Has the right to vote, register to vote, and receive documentation necessary to prove identity for voting without discrimination due to his or her housing status; Has the right to protection from disclosure of his or her records and information provided to homeless shelters and service providers to state, municipal and private entities without appropriate legal authority; and the right to confidentiality of personal records and information in accordance with all limitations on disclosure established by the Federal Homeless Management Information Systems, the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, and the Federal Violence Against Women Act; and Has the right to a reasonable expectation of privacy in his or her personal property to the same extent as personal property in a permanent residence.

The well-established Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless (and a newer subgroup called Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project) collaborated with the more radical Occupy Providence group to lobby successfully for the Bill.Robert Wengronowitz, "Lessons From Occupy Providence", The Sociological Quarterly 54(2), March 2013. Accessed via Wiley; 3 July 2013. "OP would not have been able to negotiate the deal with the City without the decades-long effort by RICH and later RIHAP to create organizational infrastructure—for example, communication networks, development of coalitional relationships, and media contacts. In fact, RICH's infrastructure itself significantly supported the founding of RIHAP. Rhode Island became the first state to pass a Homeless Bill of Rights in late June 2012, an action less likely without RICH, RIHAP, OP, and their ability to work across differences. For instance, some RICH members were concerned that OP was "too radical," but OP was fortunate in that RICH considers seriously the concept of coalition building. Ryczek (2011, capitalization in original) defended the collaboration this way to RICH members: 'Coalitions rarely see eye to eye on each and every single factor concerning their common interests ... We certainly ... will not agree on all issues. Yet, where common ground and common goals DO exist it must be our role to move on such commonalities.'"Mallory Moretti, "Occupy Prov. marches for homelessness: Governor allows tents on State House law"; WPRI, 10 December 2011.

The legislation passed in Rhode Island guaranteed unhoused individuals seven negative rights. However, while it expressly states that "[n]o person's rights, privileges, or access to public services may be denied or abridged solely because he or she is homeless", the law does not guarantee positive rights such as housing or food. Because the legislation simply restates the rights of all citizens of Rhode Island, some homeless advocates are concerned that it has not had enough impact.Jake Grovum, "Nation's 1st Homeless Bill of Rights Slow to Cause Change in Rhode Island", 12 November 2012. However, this Bill is still noteworthy because the rights it does guarantee are judicially enforceable, and because it was the first of its kind to be passed in the United States.

Illinois