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Downtown Akron from the south of the city looking north.

(Joshua Gunter/cleveland.com)

Joseph Mead is an assistant professor at Cleveland State University

Last month, Akron City Council unanimously adopted a resolution that offers support for President Barack Obama's "criminal justice reform agenda." The resolution urges reforms to "address the vicious cycle of poverty, criminality, and incarceration that traps too many Americans and weakens families and communities."

Good news, Akron! If you really believe in criminal justice reform, you don't need to wait for a national task force to deliberate: You can stop arresting people for being poor in your own city. There are plenty of opportunities for reform in Akron, which has adopted some of the most aggressively anti-homeless policies in the nation.

To begin, the city of Akron has been sued for destroying the tents, clothing, and few belongings of people who have no home or shelter.

Imagine the public uproar if a city destroyed vehicles, without notice, because their owners forgot to feed a parking meter. Now imagine if a city destroyed not only your car, but everything you own, without notice or opportunity to respond, simply because a city bureaucrat thought you had committed some technical legal violation.

This is precisely what happened to a group of individuals whose few possessions were indiscriminately destroyed by the city of Akron. For simply trying to survive the night, they lost everything they owned. (The case against the city of Akron remains pending in federal court.)

Let's be very clear: By making it illegal to sleep outside, you make it illegal to be without a home.

The city of Akron's war against the poor is not limited to wanton destruction of their few belongings. Dave Lieberth, then a deputy mayor of Akron, boasted in a 2011 email that the city had one of the strictest laws in the nation against so-called panhandling, which is the simple act of asking a neighbor for help.

Tellingly, the Akron Art Museum, the University of Akron, and even Akron City Council members running for re-election solicit donations. Yet this solicitation becomes criminal in the city's view when it is performed by a person who is poor enough to need the money to eat. Poor people have the right to free speech, too, and silencing people in need does not eliminate the need.

Cities don't obtain criminal justice reform by adopting empty resolutions, and they don't solve poverty by making it illegal to be poor. The city of Akron's choice to use handcuffs to eliminate homelessness is not simply cruel and ineffective, it is also counterproductive. Homeless individuals who are arrested, harassed, and demeaned by the police are understandably wary of accepting help when it is offered. Moreover, it is incredibly expensive.

Recent studies by the University of Denver and Seattle University have documented the astoundingly high price tag of enforcing local laws against the poor, money that would be far more effectively spent by implementing solutions to homelessness.

Yet, the city of Akron continues to waste its resources on needless arrests: Just a few weeks ago, the city jailed a person who was homeless for eight days for the crime of asking someone for a donation. Housing the homeless by throwing them in jail is an absurdly expensive and unproductive way to provide shelter.

Indeed, rather than fund proven, effective poverty-assistance programs, the city of Akron instead collaborates with the Downtown Akron Partnership, a quasi-governmental organization that represents the interests of downtown businesses. The partnership's "ambassadors" patrol the public areas of downtown Akron for panhandlers or homeless individuals who have overstayed their welcome, by directing them to leave and/or calling the police.

Perhaps most frighteningly of all, local nonprofits who participate in Summit County's Continuum of Care -- which does great work to actually solve homelessness -- could lose millions of dollars in federal grant funding because of the city's anti-poor policies.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that communities, like Akron, that criminalize homelessness would be given a lower priority for Continuum of Care funding.

The city of Akron's misguided campaign against the neediest in our community could sabotage the efforts of those in the community who are actually working to find constructive solutions.

So, Akron, it's time to finally put your money where your mouth is. You don't need to wait for the president to start reforming criminal justice here in Akron. The path is simple: stop arresting people for being too poor.

Joseph Mead is an assistant professor at Cleveland State University, where he holds a joint appointment with the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs and the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. He also volunteers as a cooperating attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cleveland State University or the ACLU of Ohio.