{"id":27298,"date":"2024-03-20T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-03-20T19:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=27298"},"modified":"2024-03-20T12:00:12","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T19:00:12","slug":"cartoon-lets-outlaw-being-homeless-thatll-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=27298","title":{"rendered":"Cartoon: Let’s Outlaw Being Homeless! That’ll Work!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This cartoon is drawn by the always-great R. E. Ryan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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I worked for many years at a historic church site in Portland, Oregon.<\/a> The most fun part of the job was directing wedding rehearsals. (As a wedding coordinator, I helped with hundreds, maybe thousands, of weddings, and I can confidently report that “bridezilla” brides are actually very, very rare.)<\/p>\n

The least fun part was occasionally having to ask homeless people sleeping in the church doorway to wake up and move on. We had put together some info we could hand folks – numbers and addresses of local shelters – but I got the impression that most of them were well aware of those options already, and had their reasons for not going. Plus, then as now, many of the shelters are full.<\/p>\n

Homelessness is incredibly hard to address – and the number one (but not only) policy that can help, building more and more housing, isn’t simple either, and can’t do anything about immediate short-term needs.<\/p>\n

So it’s hard. But laws banning sleeping in public – and other aspects of being homeless – are a terrible response.<\/p>\n

It’s not just cruel – these laws are literally demanding the impossible. Human beings are, alas, embodied physical beings existing in a physical universe, and it follows that we will inevitably be somewhere <\/em>while we sleep. And if you’re someone who doesn’t have access to a private place to sleep – by definition, you’ll be sleeping in public.<\/p>\n

Not that these laws are enforced against someone like me if I doze off while working in a coffee shop (as I have several times) or while sitting on a park bench. They’re not really <\/em>laws against sleeping in public; they’re laws against being homeless. And they actually make it harder for people to get out of homelessness.<\/p>\n

Eric Tars of the National Homelessness Law Center writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The growing affordable housing gap and shrinking social safety net have left millions of people homeless or at-risk, and most American cities have fewer emergency shelter beds than people who need shelter. Despite this lack of affordable housing and shelter space, many cities have chosen to criminally or civilly punish people living on the street for doing what any human being must do to survive, like sleeping, resting, and eating \u2013 activities we all do every day and take for granted. […]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Criminalization policies are ineffective and, in fact, make homelessness harder to exit. Because people experiencing homelessness are not on the street by choice but because they lack choices, criminal and civil punishment serves no constructive purpose. Instead, arrests, unaffordable tickets, and the collateral consequences of criminal convictions make it more difficult for people to exit homelessness and get back on their feet. Criminalization of homelessness might mean that individuals experiencing homelessness are taken to jail, where they may remain for weeks if they cannot pay their bail or fines, perhaps losing custody of their children, property and\/or employment in the process. Once released, they could have criminal records that make it more difficult to get or keep a job, housing, or public benefits. Moreover, fines and court fees associated with resolving a criminalization case can amount to hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. Without the resources to pay, homeless people may be subject to additional jail time. Criminalization is the most expensive and least effective way of addressing homelessness and wastes scarce public resources on policies that do not work. A growing body of research comparing the cost of homelessness, including the cost of criminalization, with the cost of providing housing to homeless people shows that ending homelessness through housing is the most affordable option in the long run.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON<\/strong><\/p>\n

This cartoon has four panels. All the panels show a gritty commercial doorway – the kind that’s recessed a few feet into the building – on a city sidewalk. There’s litter and graffiti here.<\/p>\n

There are two characters in the comic strip. The first character is a homeless man sleeping in the doorway, wearing a zip-up sweatshirt over a t-shirt and a dull red knit cap, and with a full beard. \u00a0The other character is a muscular-looking cop dressed in a police uniform and carrying a baton. In defiance of tradition, he is cleanshaven. I’ll call these two characters KNITCAP and COP.<\/p>\n

PANEL 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

Knitcap, covered by a brown blanket and with his head pillowed on some rolled-up clothes, is lying in a doorway, apparently asleep. The cop is using his baton to poke knitcap in the side. The cop has a somewhat sadistic grin.<\/p>\n

COP: Hey, you! Get up! We’ve outlawed sleeping in public! You’re not allowed anymore!<\/p>\n

PANEL 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Knitcap is sitting up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes with one hand. He speaks calmly. The cop watches, smirking, arms akimbo.<\/p>\n

KNITCAP: In that case, I guess I’ll sleep in a hotel tonight.<\/p>\n

PANEL 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

A close-up of Knitcap. He’s stroking his chin with a hand, as if thinking through his options.<\/p>\n

KNITCAP: Or should I sleep in my townhouse instead? Or my Hamptons place? I’ll call my butler and ask what he thinks!<\/p>\n

PANEL 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

Knitcap, grinning, is now holding a hand next to his face, thumb and pinky finger extended, pretending it’s a phone as he talks. The cop is glaring and slapping his baton against his palm.<\/p>\n

KNITCAP: Smithers? Smithers old boy! My super fun street sleeping holiday is done. Which of my mansions shall I sleep in tonight.<\/p>\n

COP (thought): Next step: Outlaw sarcasm.<\/p>\n

CHICKEN FAT WATCH<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chicken fat are unimportant but fun details cartoonists sometimes sneak into comic strips.<\/p>\n

In panel one, in the lower-right-hand corner of the panel, two rats are sitting, holding playing cards and apparently playing poker, or some similar card game. In panel two, a cat walks in, apparently stalking the rats. The rats look at the cat. And in panel four, the cat has been dealt in and is playing the game with them.<\/p>\n

In all the panels, Knitcap is wearing a t-shirt with some words that are hard to make out. But what it says is “No, you’re Spartacus.”<\/p>\n

In panel three, there’s a lot of mostly-unintelligible graffiti, but just below the doorknob someone has painted “BACKGROUND DETAILS RULZ.”<\/p>\n

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Let’s Outlaw Being Homeless! That’ll Work! | Patreon<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This cartoon is drawn by the always-great R. E. Ryan. I worked for many years at a historic church site in Portland, Oregon. The most fun part of the job was directing wedding rehearsals. (As a wedding coordinator, I helped … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,106,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartooning-comics","category-class-poverty-labor-related-issues","category-economics-and-the-like"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27300,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27298\/revisions\/27300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}