Is there any place presently in the United States, where people are literally locked up just for being homeless? According to my law dictionary, that would be an unconstitutional “status crime”. But I know it apparently did happen in the past. Does it happen at all today?
And, is there any place in the world, where this can and does happen? I know in our ally, Saudi Arabia, they cut off your arm for stealing an apple. But homelessness? Hmmm.
Shortly before WWII, my father went on a trans-continental hike from Los Angeles to New York City. At that time, there were laws on the books which stipulated that a person could be arrested for vagrancy unless they carried the sum of at least ten dollars on their person. So my grandmother sewed a ten-dollar bill into the cuff of my father’s sweater to avoid this from happening. Believe it or not, after walking for a year, he made it all the way to New York before he got picked up. He was walking down the street, smelling like a mountain goat, when two plainclothes officers literally picked him up off the ground from behind with no verbal acknowledgement, one hand under each armpit, and tossed him into a cruiser. When he was able to demonstrate that he had ten dollars on him, they had no choice but to release him.
A friend of mine hitch-hiked to Atlanta, Georgia in the late 90s to get a tattoo from a “famous” artist (my friend was also a tattoo artist). He spent every penny he had on him on his tattoo, then began hitching back to Pittsburgh.
Somewhere in Georgia he was questioned by police, who then arrested him on a vagrancy charge. He spent eight days in jail, was found guilty and given time served.
While in jail he was infested with lice. Once he got home he shaved his entire body and kept himself that way from then on. He was a totally different man after his trip, and I eventually began avoiding him.
You can’t be arrested for being homeless any more than you can be arrested for being a drug addict. You can be arrested for possession of drugs, or for trespassing, public urination, drunk and disorderly, or panhandling. “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”