When a city like Ashland, Oregon passes laws targeting the homeless it sends a clear message that they are not welcome. It sends another message that beneath the thin veneer; society considers them worthless. Instead of lending a helping hand, most people cross to the other side of the street to avoid them. As if they have something that is contagious. This lack of empathy I find to be heartbreaking.

McCain’s home state of Arizona is one of the places were 32 homeless people died on the streets of Phoenix, in the summer of 2005. Four homeless men died of heat exposure, in one weekend, in the summer of 2006. Sad statistics that I’m sure did not even get a mention in the local paper. When cities like Phoenix and Ashland could solve the problem easily by building homeless shelters.

The ACLU of Oregon is challenging Ashland’s anti-camping ordinance.

The Southern Oregon Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon calls upon the City of Ashland to amend its “Prohibited Camping” ordinance from one that punishes poverty and homelessness into one that prods the city to provide housing for the homeless. The city’s inhumane anti-camping law is inconsistent with the values of the Ashland, and the ACLU calls for immediate reform. “The poor should not be punished simply for being poor, and that’s what this law does in Ashland,” said the ACLU of Oregon Executive Director David Fidanque. “The city of Ashland and all cities should seek to address the underlying issues of homelessness and poverty, rather than enacting and enforcing laws that target those who are homeless.” In a report released today, the Southern Oregon Chapter calls on the Ashland City Council to make the specific revisions to the Prohibited Camping Ordinance, Municipal Code Section 10.46, and to the related “Sleeping Prohibited” ordinance, Section 10.68.230: Section 10.46.020 (“Camping Prohibited”) should be amended to provide that, except as set forth in Section 10.46.030, the prohibitions in this ordinance shall not apply between the hours of 9 p.m. and 8 a.m., unless and until at least 50 units of permanent supportive housing are created within the City of Ashland, at least 50 percent of which are centrally located. These units must be created for current or chronically homeless persons. Section 10.46.050 (“Penalties”) should be amended to lower the offense in Subsection A to a “violation,” to correct the erroneous reference in Subsection B to Section 1.08.010, and to correct the next to last word in Subsection B from “rebuttal” to “rebuttable. Section 10.68.230 (“Sleeping Prohibited”) should be repealed.

The “Sleeping Prohibited” is way over the top. Ashland is by far not the worse for their poor treatment of the homeless; actually that goes to Florida.

Florida historically is “one of the worst states for criminalizing homelessness.” Stoops points out an Orlando ordinance that limits feeding homeless people in public places. In April 2007, undercover cops were sent to Orlando’s Lake Eola Park, to arrest Eric Montanez for feeding 30 homeless people – five more than the city’s 25-person limit. “You can feed pigeons, dogs and squirrels, but God forbid you try to feed the homeless,” Stoops says.

In many cases, ours laws protect animals better than they do people. It makes me yearn for the stories my grandmother use to tell me about – during the depression – when her family of 11, use to feed the homeless that would come to their back door for a meal. They didn’t have any money but they never turned away a single person that came to the door hungry. It was the worst of times that brought out the best in people.