Homeless Person

With an increased homeless population comes increased concern on the part of members of the general public when they find members of

A homeless man sleeps on a park bench. Several states have enacted local laws recognizing the right to shelter, but state agencies, due to expense and overcrowding, often cannot keep up with the demand.
AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS

that population loitering on the streets. VAGRANCY ordinances were passed to keep people who are homeless from staying too long in any one location. Many of these statutes have been labeled antihomeless legislation because they particularly target behavior over which some homeless people have no control.

In Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 92 S. Ct. 839, 31 L. Ed. 2d 110 (1972), eight homeless people challenged their conviction for violating a vagrancy ordinance. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the ordinance was vague and that it criminalized otherwise innocent conduct. In this and similar cases, the Court has stated that these "crimes" do not cause any harm to others that outweighs the violation of the rights of the individuals arrested.

Protections against an illegal SEARCH AND SEIZURE also apply to people who are homeless and to their belongings, even though their belongings might not be located in a traditional home setting. In State v. Mooney, 218 Conn. 85, 588 A.2d 145 (1991), police officers searched belongings of a homeless man that were found under a bridge embankment. As a result of the search, the man was arrested and charged with ROBBERY and felony murder. The man appealed his conviction, claiming that it had been an illegal search because the police had lacked a warrant to search his home, a cardboard box. The court agreed with the man that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of his belongings. It disagreed, however, with his contention that he had an expectation of privacy in the bridge abutment area.

When people without a home are arrested and jailed, their property is often destroyed or stolen while they are incarcerated. Laws that target people who are homeless are thus viewed as unreasonable searches and seizures of property. In Pottinger v. City of Miami, 810 F. Supp. 1551 (S.D. Fla. 1992), a CLASS ACTION suit was brought on behalf of thousands of homeless people. The court agreed that certain city ordinances unfairly targeted those people and that resulting arrests and seizures of property were in violation of their constitutional rights.

Finally, there appeared to be an increasing trend for many urban areas to enact legislation prohibiting the homeless from begging or panhandling among the general public. As of 2003, 46 of the nation's 50 largest cities had passed laws that either prohibited or regulated begging—not without some planned challenges.