Not in Anyone?s Backyard: Ending the "Contest of Nonresponsibility"and Implementing Long-term Solutions to Homelessness

Nancy Wright

Assistant Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law

As greater numbers of poor Americans move along the poverty continuum toward increasing indigency, the public and politicians have become increasingly hostile to the concerns of the poor. The public is no longer sympathetic to the homeless, who they now perceive as being pathological predators who spoil downtown areas and threaten suburbia. "Compassion fatigue" toward the homeless has resulted as Americans have "harden(ed) themselves to the pain of the homeless by brushing off their entreaties for help and seeking ways to get them out of their sight and out of their communities." Politicians at the federal, state and local levels have, at the public's behest, tightened welfare requirements, decreased payments, reduced subsidized housing, prohibited begging and resting in public places and enacted several other laws designed to push indigents out of their communities. This tendency to push the poor from one community to another is a crisis of non-responsibility which will ultimately result in the poor being denied the basic essentials of life. "Homelessness is a continuing problem that will not be alleviated unless cities, states, and the federal government are forced to take some responsibility for homeless people and are prevented from continuing to push them from one community to another in a never-ending contest of nonresponsibility."

Homelessness is on the rise for both the working poor and the welfare poor. The effect of compassion fatigue and non-responsibility on public assistance programs designed to combat this problem has led to a decrease in funding for general assistance benefits, emergency shelters, and low income housing which have made it more difficult for the homeless to escape homelessness. Also, the criminalization of sleeping and camping, begging and panhandling, and the proliferation of catch-all codes designed to prohibit other activities by the homeless have forced them from many communities.

There are various solutions to these types of problems including, but not limited to, legal challenges based on vagueness, right to travel, freedom of speech, the Fourth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clause. Another solution is a three part game plan that can be used to end the "contest of nonresponsibility" in the long term. The main focus of this plan is on providing temporary emergency shelters, permanent affordable housing, comprehensive treatment for homeless individuals with physical or mental disabilities, and providing employment opportunities for all able-bodied homeless people. But in order to make these positive changes, communities must take responsibility for the plight of the homeless.

Vol. II, No. 2, p. 163 (1995)

Revised July 17, 2003 (MD)