Getting Kicked When You Are Down: The Criminal Law and the Homeless in the United States

Abstract

In recent years, both local and federal efforts to solve the homelessness epidemic have concentrated on criminalizing the chronic population, currently about 84,000 nationwide. In this paper I intend to examine how this process has developed in the United States. I intend to highlight what the problem is factually by showing what these laws are, arguments for their existence and counters to these arguments. I will analyze certain ways which homeless litigants could challenge these modern laws and ordinances constitutionally by examining previous precedents which could back their respective cases. I will then conclude by suggesting an alternative approach to criminalization which has proved effective in the United States.