In the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cities passed “ugly laws” banning“unsightly beggars” from public places. In the first half of the twentiethcentury, vagrancy and loitering ordinances were used to expel the poor frompark benches and street corners. Today, municipal regulations still allow thepolice to arrest the homeless for being seen in public, criminalizing abjectpoverty.

The American Psychiatric Association noted that police are also more likely to use excessive force when they interact with unhoused people with mental illness. Even when “well-intentioned law enforcement responders” respond to calls for help, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the situations often escalate due to “the presence of police vehicles and armed officers that generate anxiety.”

More than one-fifth of people experiencing homelessness currently have a serious mental illness like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, and the US Department of Justice has found that “the prevalence of unmet behavioral health needs” is a key driver in why “people who experience homelessness tend to have frequent (and often repeat) interactions with law enforcement.”

Willison’s research found that 22 percent of mayors from over 120 cities station their homelessness staff within police departments. Even among those cities that station homeless outreach teams elsewhere, most still include formal roles for police. Seventy-six percent of homeless outreach teams formally involve the police, per another study she co-published last year.

“The crux of the issue is we’re thinking about the focus on encampment closure without access to housing,” said Charley Willison, a Cornell professor who has studied the influence of police on cities’ homelessness policies.

“The Ninth Circuit and respondents have tried to downplay the ways in which the ruling ties local leaders’ hands, but their arguments only confirm the decision’s ambiguity and unworkability,” Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in an amicus brief filed in September.

In Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court will decide whether it constitutes cruel and unusual punishment to fine, ticket, or jail someone for sleeping outside on public property if they have nowhere else to go. A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would make it easier for communities to clear out homeless people’s tent encampments, even if no available housing or shelter exists.

Almost 40 percent of transgender youth experience homelessness or housing instability, according to a 2022 report from the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that provides crisis support for young LGBTQ+ people.

Recognizing the role that federal leadership can play in breaking this cycle, the Council is pursuing steps to reduce criminal justice system involvement among people experiencing homelessness, both by reducing the criminalization of homelessness and the return of people from correctional settings to homelessness. Specific action areas include:

Strategies Improve identification of children experiencing homelessness and ensure support for them to enroll in school. Eliminate barriers to enrollment and provide seamless transitions from early childhood education through elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. Improve access to and retention in early childhood education programs, elementary and secondary education, and post-secondary education. Review existing federal, state, and local program policies, procedures, and regulations to identify mechanisms that could increase both access to and retention in high-quality programs. These mechanisms should help remove barriers and ensure early childhood-to-adulthood educational access, quality child care, and early childhood education through elementary, secondary, and post-secondary education. Educate homelessness assistance providers about the laws, and the programs and practices under those laws, designed to increase access to early care and education, such as those carried out under Head Start, the McKinney-Vento Act’s education subtitle, and the independent student provisions of the Higher Education Act.

“Where we’re moving to is real-time data where you know everybody who’s homeless by name,”

(1)Primary homelessnessPeople without conventional accommodation (livingon thestreets, sleeping in parks, squatting in derelict buildings, orusing cars or railway carriages for temporary shelter).(2 )Secondary homelessness(moving around/temporary accommodation)People who move around frequently fromone form of tempo-rary shelter to another, including: people using emergencyaccommodation; teenagers staying in youth refuges; peopleresiding temporarily with friendsor relatives; and those usingboarding houses onan occasional or intermittent basis.(3 )Tertiary homelessness(boarding house population)People living in singlerooms on a medium to long-term basis.Residents of private boarding houses donot have a separatebedroom and living room; they donot have kitchen and bath-room facilities of their own; their accommodation is not selfcontained; and they do not have security oftenure providedby a lease. Theyare homeless, because their accommodation isinferior to the characteristics identified in the 'communitystandard'.(4)Marginally housedPeople in accommodation situations whichare only slightlybelow the communitynorm. This category would include: acouple living ina single room with their own kitchen andbathroom, but withouta separate room for sleeping; or a fam-ily staying with relatives (doubling up);or a couple renting acaravan without security of tenure

“The tunnel’snot bad. The tunnel’s a good place if you want to find out who you are. But when you find out who you are, you have to move out or the tunnel will eat you up like it ate me up for several years. Like I say, I built everything up around the tunnel. Now I have to learn to build it around myself.”

Homelessness is not truly the condition of not having a home. Because the homeless indeed have a home they build on the streets or in the tunnels, their condition is more accurately described as the absence of a stable home.

“Honestly,” said Wiener, “it is perplexing to me why people are so insistent that local communities should not have control. The behavior we see on (our) street is a very localized issue. We should be able to address it.

And it gives police a tool to discourage bad behavior.