Prosthetic Conscience

City of Columbia’s confused stance on the homeless

From the “breaking legs and handing out crutches department”:

Columbia police have arrested 21 homeless people on outstanding warrants in the city’s two winter shelters since they opened Nov. 17.

Because the city is running the shelters for the first time this year, the police officers who work there can check the sign-in sheets against a national database each day to nab suspected criminals.

All 21 suspects were wanted on bench warrants, which are issued when a person fails to appear in court.

A list of charges was not available, but city officials say all suspects were facing misdemeanor charges like panhandling and public intoxication.

(The State, Nov. 30, 2006)

This action will undoubtably lead to many homeless people avoiding the winter shelters, for fear of being arrested, or simply of being harrassed by cops. Every year in Columbia, a few people die of exposure because they could not or would not stay at the winter shelter. This action by the city will cause one or two more deaths this year.

This action is typical of the city of Columbia’s confused stance on homelessness. While the city is planning on opening a new shelter offering more services than previous ones, and doing so over the objections of neighbourhood residents, they are also stepping up efforts to forcibly remove homeless (or homeless-looking?) people from public spaces, and to eliminate for everyone city services that happen to be used by homeless people (reducing park hours, for example). The city has also taken control of the winter shelter from Cooperative Ministries, the nonprofit group that used to run it.

Taken as a whole, it seems like the city’s actions are, if not simply incoherent and poorly thought out, intended to maximize dependence on the government. The city is increasingly forbidding and punishing attempts by homeless people to take care of themselves (by panhandling, making use of public spaces, for example) while reducing the aid available from non-government sources (Cooperative Ministries, for example), and slightly increasing the amount of governmental aid available.

Or maybe they’re just incompetent.

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