Among all the tactics used to make war on people experiencing homelessness, one of the most insidious is penalizing their allies. A while back, we published a post titled “Helping the Homeless: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished” and, more recently, one called “People Who Feed People.” Let’s look at what else has been going on in that area.
The title, “Canadian Cop Posing As Homeless Person Fines Guy For Giving Him Change,” pretty much says it all. In Regina, Saskatchewan, an undercover officer dressed as a homeless person with a cardboard sign lured a driver to give a contribution. To reach the window, the driver had to undo his seat belt. A second officer arrived on the scene, and ticketed him for not having his seat belt fastened, which resulted in a $175 fine.
Journalist Jake Kivanç describes how the police masquerade as panhandlers to entrap kind citizens, which is both exploitative and pathetic:
This is all part of an effort by Regina police and other municipalities to capture drivers committing traffic violations — which range from distracted driving to not wearing your seatbelt.
In the USA, a very large problem becomes clearer every day. There is no shortage of ideas about how to make self-contained small living quarters for people who presently live outside. Engineers, grad students, and even bright children have figured out how to make shelters out of everything from hempcrete to shipping containers. Every now and then an American breaks into the news by building noteworthy “tiny houses.”
We have not only the technology, but the materials, the volunteer labor, and the humanitarian incentive to build these things. After volunteers show the way, why can’t employable tiny-house inhabitants be employed to build more tiny houses? The answer appears to be, because no one wants these structures, anywhere. America is just one big Backyard with everybody saying “Not In Mine.”
For example, in St. Cloud, Minnesota, St. John’s Episcopal Church has on its property a tiny house, described as “a 132-square-foot shelter on wheels with electricity, water and heat.” The inhabitant was chosen by the St. Cloud Homeless Men’s Coalition, to live there in return for doing janitorial work.
Reporter Susan Du interviewed the church’s attorney, Robert Feigh, and learned that although there are no zoning ordinances about tiny houses, the city’s inspectors have tried every trick in the book to end this arrangement. St. John’s filed a federal lawsuit against St. Cloud, citing the Bill of Rights, the Religious Land Use Act and the Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.
With the lawyerly ability to get both sides, Feigh said:
They see it as a vague potential problem if there were tiny houses all over the city, that that wouldn’t be good, and it probably wouldn’t be… The government cannot interfere with churches rendering to the poor on their own property. That’s what it amounts to.
In Dover, Delaware, another church is in the same kind of trouble, and being fined $100 a day, because a three-generation family lives in an RV out back. The woman in the middle generation is blind, pregnant, afflicted with an auto-immune condition, and only 21. Alexis Simms’ mother helps to care for her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
Pastor Aaron Appling of Victory Church said:
We want to stand up for her. Because there is nobody else to stand up for her.
The county is upset because the church property holds three camper trucks, but the church doesn’t have special approval to house a commercial recreational campground in an agricultural residential district, which would cost about $100,000 to achieve.
This is only the tip of the iceberg. The uncredited reporter describes the intrigue:
Earlier this year, the parish, in conjunction with the nonprofit Port Hope Delaware, began formulating plans for a Tiny Home Project in Dover. The village would consist of 15 tiny homes on four acres of land on the western half of Victory’s property…
The project ran into zoning issues with the county, as the land could be zoned for four residential homes, but the village would be considered high-density housing.
Neighbors were not impressed by the promise of background checks on applicants, or the fact that tenants would each pay $200 to $300 per month to live in the tiny houses. Reportedly, every residence in the vicinity had a “NO TINY HOUSES” sign in its yard. Neighbors talk about losing equity in their properties, but why not just stay there at the homestead, as they always planned to? The amount of profit that might be realized from a sale is a moot issue.
At a recent City Council meeting, Pastor Appling was accompanied by around 100 people experiencing homelessness and their advocates. Alexis Simms has been unable to find housing for her family through the channels provided by city and county. Speaking at a memorial vigil for three homeless men, she said:
It’s not just me that’s homeless. There’s thousands of us and we want help. We’re not contagious. We’re human people and we’re here.
Reactions?
Source: “Canadian Cop Posing As Homeless Person Fines Guy For Giving Him Change,” Vice.com, 06/10/16
Source: “St. Cloud wants to evict “gentle” homeless man from church’s tiny house,” CityPages.com, 08/30/16
Source: “Church faces daily $100 fine for housing homeless on its lot, battles with neighbors,” RT.com, 10/11/16
Photo credit (from top): Tammy Strobel via Visualhunt/CC BY; Jon Callas via Visualhunt/CC BY; Tammy Strobel via Visualhunt/CC BY