Opinion

U.N. panel denounces laws targeting homeless

Homeless people like these in Golden Gate Park could face penalties for violating San Francisco's law prohibiting sitting or lying on public sidewalks. Homeless people like these in Golden Gate Park could face penalties for violating San Francisco's law prohibiting sitting or lying on public sidewalks. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close U.N. panel denounces laws targeting homeless 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

The U.N. panel that reviews countries' compliance with a human-rights treaty says laws in U.S. communities that subject the homeless to prosecution for everyday activities - including "sit-lie" ordinances like San Francisco's - appear to violate international standards and should be abolished nationwide.

The report was issued March 26 by the U.N. Human Rights Committee, a panel of 18 legal experts from nations including the United States. Its five-year study of U.S. treaty compliance listed 25 "matters of concern," including government surveillance, torture, solitary confinement and what the committee described as "criminalization of homelessness."

The conclusions about the homeless are among the most startling.

"The committee is concerned about reports of criminalization of people living on the street for everyday activities such as eating, sleeping, sitting in particular areas etc.," the report said. "The committee notes that such criminalization raises concerns of discrimination or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" prohibited by different sections of the treaty.

The United States, the report said, should "engage with state and local authorities" to eliminate all such laws, withdraw funding from communities that enforce the laws, and work with social service, health care and law enforcement professionals "to intensify efforts to find solutions for the homeless in accordance with human-rights standards."

The panel that wrote the report included Harvard Law Professor Gerald Neuman.

Local law

The San Francisco ordinance, approved by 54 percent of the city's voters in 2010, prohibits sitting or lying on public sidewalks between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. Violations are subject to criminal penalties - after an initial warning, the next offense is punishable by a citation and fine, and further offenses can draw misdemeanor prosecutions and jail sentences.

Dozens of cities have similar laws, including Palo Alto and Santa Cruz. Voters in Berkeley narrowly rejected a sit-lie ban in commercial districts in November 2012.

The U.N. committee report is not the first to condemn such laws. The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, composed of 19 agencies in the president's Cabinet, said in 2012 that "criminalization policies" marginalize the homeless, "fuel inflammatory attitudes" and might violate constitutional rights.

The council was directed by Congress, in a 2009 law, to work on alternatives to sit-lie and similar local practices. The Obama administration says it responded with programs in housing and homeless services that have led to a nationwide decline in homelessness - 8 percent overall from 2010 to 2013, with a 16 percent drop in chronic homelessness.

But advocates say the federal government triggered a surge in homelessness with huge cuts in housing aid in the 1980s that have never been fully restored. Local governments responded, said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness in San Francisco, by attempting to "push homeless people out of town by passing laws that curb their presence on the streets."

Input from a prestigious international body might refocus the debate.

The U.N. committee has no enforcement authority in the United States - the U.S. Senate ruled out any such powers when it ratified the treaty, known as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in 1992 - but, like all treaties, it is the law of the land.

Could be forceful

International law requires the U.S. to comply with the treaty and with its interpretation by "reviewing bodies" like the U.N. panel, said Connie de La Vega, a University of San Francisco law professor who directs the school's International Law Clinic. If those who have resisted change learned that "this violates our treaty obligations or international law, it might force them to reconsider," she said.

It also reminds activists that "we're not alone, we're not crazy," said Paul Boden, director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, which campaigns for low-cost housing and rights of the homeless in California and Oregon. "It's just like fighting Jim Crow laws" on racial segregation, he said.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has a different perspective. As San Francisco's mayor, Newsom joined then-Police Chief George Gascón in backing sit-lie on the November 2010 ballot after the after the Board of Supervisors had rejected the ordinance.

Newsom had earlier sponsored the city's ban on "aggressive panhandling" and the Care Not Cash program of cutting financial aid while increasing services to homeless and other needy residents. He joined the sit-lie campaign after taking his infant daughter on a stroll in Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, where they had just moved in 2010, and coming across a man smoking crack cocaine on the sidewalk.

"I don't believe stepping over someone on the street is more compassionate than encouraging someone to stand up and try to support them to get their lives back together," he said in an interview after release of the U.N. report. "These laws provide a platform for that engagement."

The U.N. committee's concern was understandable, Newsom said, and would be justified in a city that relied on an enforcement-only policy without social services. But San Francisco, he said, "invests as much or more than any city in America in its poverty programs" and has shown that sit-lie and other criminal laws can be implemented with compassion.

Might be catalyst

Friedenbach, of the Coalition on Homelessness, countered that homeless people have been jailed under sit-lie, sometimes because they were unable to pay fines. She said the U.N. committee report, by "putting it into the framework of human rights," might boost efforts to curb such laws statewide.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, tried unsuccessfully last year to win passage of legislation that would have banned sit-lie ordinances in any city with a shortage of affordable housing. He said the U.N. report was "right on target."

"If you are homeless, you have to sit somewhere, you have to sleep somewhere, you have to rest at some point in the day," Ammiano said in a statement. "Laws like sit-lie just try to push the problem somewhere else. ...We should be humane, and that's what the U.N. report is suggesting."