ACLU Suit

[ Excerpt from: ACLU Sues City - Says Anti-Camping Laws Criminalize Poor and Disabled," By Isabelle T. Walker, SB INDEPENDENT, March 7, 2009 ]


With the closure of Casa Esperanza’s winter shelter fast approaching, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Santa Barbara Friday seeking an end to its prohibitions against sleeping and camping in public. The group said the laws criminalize impoverished, disabled residents who have no alternative place to lay their heads.

The ACLU of Southern California is also considering seeking a court order to keep the Casa Esperanza shelter open beyond April 1, when half of its 200 beds are scheduled to disappear and 100 homeless will be sent back on the streets where they are liable to be ticketed and ultimately sent to jail, said the group’s legal director Mark Rosenbaum...

City Councilman Das Williams said though he had not had a chance to read the suit yet, he expected the city would handle it constructively.

“As someone who had to live in my vehicle when I was younger, I am diametrically opposed to the criminalization of poverty. I know the city is doing some very good things to transition people out of homelessness and into housing. But if there’s something we’re not doing, or if there’s something we’re doing that works against the chance to deal compassionately with the homeless, then I’m glad we’ll have a chance to look at it,” he said...

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SB INDEPENDENT: ACLU Sues

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