By Carson Poling
Facing a national poverty rate of 19%, President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) in his 1964 State of the Union address declared “unconditional war” on poverty. Shortly afterwards, his administration introduced legislation later known colloquially as the “War on Poverty.” The administration introduced the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, designed to give communities the resources to find employment, the Food Stamp Act of 1964, which was the first program to provide permanent legislative authority to the Food Stamp program, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was designed to give children of any economic background access to educational resources, and the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which established Medicare and Medicaid. Poverty rates, unsurprisingly, dropped significantly, going down to 11.1% in 1973 and rarely surpassing 16% since. The most dramatic drops in the poverty rate were in the child, adolescent, and elderly populations. A 2013 study by Columbia University estimated that without programs first introduced during LBJ’s War on Poverty, the poverty rate would have been flat since 1967 and furthermore 29% of Americans would be living below the poverty line compared to the 16% who currently do. Thus, although poverty cannot claim to have been “defeated,” one can claim that staggering victories have been won against it. Unfortunately, many Americans have grown complacent with these victories, and many cities have begun a new approach to defeating poverty: criminalizing it.
New laws prohibiting the feeding of homeless individuals in public places have been popping up across the country. Since January, 2013, 21 cities have passed legislation prohibiting the giving of food to the homeless in public places. In 2006, Las Vegas banned the public feeding of members of the homeless population, making it a misdemeanor for both parties that could potentially lead to fines of up to $6000 and jail time of up to 6 months. Generally speaking, the homeless are not capable of paying $6000 fines, nor does jail time and a criminal record allow for opportunities to claw out of crippling poverty. Furthermore, there exists no quantitative evidence that food-sharing either enables or encourages homelessness. Even more common are laws banning the gathering and loitering of the homeless in public places. Many cities have laws prohibiting the sleeping in public places such as benches, parks, bridges, and . Those who violate these provisions are often subjugated to sweeps, leading to the confiscation of the limited amount of materials homeless people possess, such as basic tents and medication. The homeless also then suffer police brutality, against which they generally have no recourse; fines, which they are unable to pay; and criminal charges, which further deny them the opportunity to find employment and escape homelessness.
Cities that enact these laws cite the public nuisance that “indignant” members of the homeless community propose, driving down property values and damaging the tourism industry, and believe that given the existence of soup kitchens and shelters, the homeless have no excuse not to follow such laws. However, food kitchens are often not sufficiently well staffed or supplied to care for the multitudes of homeless in a city (in Las Vegas’s case, upwards of 12,000). 66% of food kitchens in cities report having to regularly turn people away due to lack of resources. This problem continues to grow worse with increasing federal cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Furthermore, there are often only a few kitchens or shelters in an area of a city, and thus many who are homeless are not in a position to walk miles every day to reach a specific location so they can eat food, nor can they pay for public transportation that other members of the city with a greater disposable income enjoy. Many shelters report not having the resources to deal with the mental health issues that plague the homeless community which prevent them from receiving shelter. Extreme depression, bipolar disorders, and schizophrenia are common among the homeless population, and without being given the resources to deal with these illnesses, they are often completely unable to be served by food and shelter institutes, much less find and hold down a job, and still less able to escape homelessness. Those that these charities cannot provide for are then forced to risk violating anti-homelessness laws, of which they are often given no notice, just to survive.
In March of 2014, Tony Yaniz, city commissioner in Key West Florida, stated that St. Mary’s Soup Kitchen should cut back on serving daily hot meals, arguing “What we’ve got to do is quit making it cozy… let’s not feed them anymore.” Ultimately, though, it is delusional to think that any individual has chosen homelessness. Most homeless individuals have limited family support, severe physical or mental impairments that prevent them from being productive, a complete lack of medical resources to treat said impairments, face extreme social prejudice, are disproportionately the victims of crime, and have no legal resources to seek justice, or even protection from crime. No one chooses to stay at the bottom of society.
Efforts to wage war on the homeless population itself have had little positive effect on the rate of homelessness, and instead have served simply to boost local property values and the tourism industry through making the most vulnerable members of society live in constant fear. However, we as a society can choose to carry on the War on Poverty’s legacy of sympathy and humanity instead. Rather than attempting cynically to sweep homelessness under the rug to boost local economic growth, we can take a page from the Great Society and fight homelessness head on. We can provide expanded medical, clinical, shelter, and educational opportunities to the homeless population, bolstering struggling homeless aid organizations with government policy at the municipal, state, and federal levels. By providing resources to those entirely bereft of them, we set the stage for long term economic growth, as previously unproductive members of society might in the long term be able to pay for the cost of such interventionist policy themselves. The War on Poverty taught us that we have the means to defeat poverty. The question then is: do we have the will?