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39 Harbinger 1 (2015)

handle is hein.journals/harbg39 and id is 1 raw text is: FROM CRIMINALIZATION TO HUMANIZATION: ENDING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE HOMELESS JOANNA LAINE ABSTRACT Homeless people experience legal and societal discrimination, manifested in the criminalization of homelessness and in many small but profound societal slights. Addressing this discrimination will require both innovative legal advocacy and the correction of misconceptions about homeless people. I. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 II. W H O IS H O M ELE SS? ........................................................................................... 5 III. THE CRIMINALIZATION OF HOMELESSNESS.................................................... 7 IV. LEGAL ISSUES CHALLENGES TO THE CRIMINALIZATION OF HOMELESSNESS.... 8 A. Panhandling Ordinances and the First Amendment.................................... 8 B. Restrictions on the Use of Public Spaces: Due Process Vagueness...............10 C. Other Constitutional Challenges to Anti-Homeless Ordinances....................11 V. A M OVE TOWARDS HUMANIZATION .............................................................. 13 I. INTRODUCTION This guy could have been mentally ill, he could have imprinted on you, raped you, killed you, or any number of other bad things. That's what someone told my friend after she wrote on Facebook about her conversation with a homeless man. Her post relayed the story of a homeless man on her block who recently suffered a heart attack and was struggling to afford the healthy food that doctors told him he needed. My friend noted in her post that people might find it weird that she was talking to the homeless man in the first place. Many might be uncomfortable striking up a conversation with him, even though he is always friendly and polite and spends his days reading peacefully on the street. Notwithstanding these positive traits, a commenter on my friend's post cautioned her about the risk she was taking by talking to a homeless man. He complimented her for being brave Joanna Laine is a third-year student at New York University School of Law and an Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Fellow. She has a long-standing interest in providing civil legal services for low-income clients, working for Fordham Law School's Feerick Center for Social Justice before coming to law school, and subsequently helping to run student organizations supporting homelessness advocacy and economic justice. After graduating in 2015, Joanna will clerk for Judge Mary Catherine Cuff on the Supreme Court of New Jersey, and plans to pursue a career in nonprofit civil legal services. 1

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