An editorial from the Portland Orient, October 1, 2002. Page 12

Next month, the Portland City Council will meet to make a final vote on Ordinance 151. If the City Council votes for the Ordinance, it will violate the fundamental civil rights of the city’s homeless population, sending the signal across the nation that Portlanders think homelessness is a crime.

According to the Ordinance, citizens may not sit or lie “in the right of way of other citizens in a manner that would hinder their unobstructed passage.” If a police officer finds someone in violation, the officer will first warn the offender and advise him or her to leave the area. If the offender fails to comply in a timely manner, then the officer may write a citation for the offender, charging him or her up to $500. In some cases, officers will also be advised to take the offender to a shelter.

According to its supporters, the Ordinance would improve the quality of life in Portland immediately. It would provide Portland police some much-needed authority in dealing with the homeless. It would also protect businesses from losing customers due to the number of vagrants hanging around outside their doors. As Councilmember Carole Griffith explained last month to local reporters, in many places around Portland, shoppers are simply too scared to enter stores due to the number of vagrants huddled outside.

This is simply balderdash. The true intent of Griffith and her minions is to get the homeless off the streets once and for all. Griffith has claimed that the ordinance is not about “certain people but rather about obstructive behavior.” But does anyone really think that this law will be enforced equally for all people? Middle-class college students partying downtown will not be ticketed if they choose to gather some place outside a club. School-age kids won’t be ticketed if they’re playing on the sidewalk. Only the homeless will be targeted, and only the homeless will get citations. The Ordinance, if passed, will make it legal for the Portland Police to begin their own brand of profiling.

This law is the latest chapter in the national debate over the unconstitutionality of laws targeting “undesirable” groups. In 1992, the city of Chicago—in response to increased gang activity—passed a law prohibiting minors from assembling on the streets. In the three years after the law was passed, Chicago police arrested more than 40,000 youths, most of them African-American and Hispanic, all because police suspected that they were gang members.

The Supreme Court later threw out the law, arguing that it violated the First Amendment of the Constitution. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, the law criminalized “status, not conduct.” This is exactly what is happening in Portland today. We are making the homeless criminals because they are homeless.

Homelessness is a serious problem in Portland, and this Ordinance will do nothing to solve it. If we really want to address the problems of homelessness and poverty, we should work to provide more affordable housing, social services, and viable employment and educational opportunities to all of our citizens.

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