[BINNED/VENKMAN SUSPENDED] Decriminalisation of homelessness

[Tinhampton]

Character count: 130
Word count: 22

Bianca Venkman, Assistant to the Delegate-Ambassador: Making the criminalisation of homeless people part of your strategy to eliminate homelessness is counterproductive and runs against our fundamental principles of... something.

OOC:

1. Austin, TX, recently enacted Proposition B - which "create[d] a criminal offense and a penalty for sitting or lying down on a public sidewalk or sleeping outdoors in and near the Downtown area and the area around the University of Texas campus; create[d] a criminal offense and penalty for solicitation, defined as requesting money or another thing of value, at specific hours and locations or for solicitation in a public area that is deemed aggressive in manner; [and] create[d] a criminal offense and penalty for camping in any public area not designated by the Parks and Recreation Department" - over the opposition of its Democratic mayor, Steve Adler, with 57.1% support on a 19.8% turnout. (Draft 1 as written, however, predates Prop B.)
2. In 2014, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Human Rights Committee both issued exceedingly similar recommendations to the United States recommending that it decriminalise homelessness and withdraw federal funding from local governments that did so.
3. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Section 3 of the Vagrancy Act 1824 - as extremely copiously amended but never repealed - continues to insist that "every person... placing himself or herself in any public place, street, highway, court, or passage, to beg or gather alms, or causing or procuring or encouraging any child or children so to do; shall be deemed an idle and disorderly person within the true intent and meaning of this Act; and, subject to section 70 of the Criminal Justice Act 1982," may be imprisoned for up to for one month... although that particular section of the CJA forbids imprisonment for doing so (but not fining).
4. This is exactly one character shorter than Debtor Voting Rights.

Decriminalisation of homelessness
A resolution to improve worldwide human sapient and civil rights.

Category: Civil Rights

Strength: Mild

Proposed by: Tinhampton

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No member state may arrest or punish any person simply for lying, sitting, begging, or otherwise being encamped in a public place.

[Bananaistan]

"Opposed. All member states are obliged to ensure that their inhabitants are both housed and fed. In this context, vagrancy and panhandling are legitimately actions which are offensive to society and should be prohibited."

[Outer Sparta]

Uh huh. That's it? Of course I'm opposed since I don't see how it's very necessary.

[Separatist Peoples]

"No person has an affirmative, axiomatic right to camp in spaces that are not designated camping areas. Opposed."

[Island Girl Herby]

Okay so if the middle of the street is a “public place”......

[Imperium Anglorum]

"Opposed. All member states are obliged to ensure that their inhabitants are both housed and fed. In this context, vagrancy and panhandling are legitimately actions which are offensive to society and should be prohibited."

Elsie Mortimer Wellesley. We concur with this assessment.

[Tinhampton]

Alexander Smith, Tinhamptonian Delegate-Ambassador to the World Assembly: Venkman has been placed on paid leave for the next few weeks and will be temporarily replaced by my good friend Lydia Anderson as my Assistant, especially after publishing a slew of ill-thought-out proposals such as the one that many have commented on. We hope to have her return in time to work on other, more realistic drafts of hers; until that point, this shall be tabled, I shall argue the proposal about people doing bad things and Lydia the proposal about people doing good things. Ta for now... ha.