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Hate Crimes & Violence Against the Homeless
poorly in our society, many more attacks go unreported. Hate crimes against the homeless community is a growing wave in need of public attention. • 1,074 reported acts of bias motivated violence have been committed against homeless individuals between 1999-2010 • 291 homeless individuals lost their lives as a result of the attacks • Reported violence has occurred in 47 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, DC Our data also suggests that the perpetrators of these attacks tend to be young men and teenaged boys. In the eleven year hisNCH tory of our hate crime reports the vast maIn the past eleven years, the National Cojority of the attacks against alition for the Homeless (NCH) has docuhomeless people have been committed mented over a thousand acts of violence by youth as young as ten years old. In against homeless individuals by housed 2009: perpetrators. These crimes are believed • 80 percent of the attacks were comto be motivated by the perpetrators’ bias mitted by people under against homeless individuals or their ability to Nearly one in three attacks thirty years of age target homeless people (on the homeless) ended in • 98 percent of perpetrators were men with relative ease. The death • Nearly one in three atdocumented violence tacks ended in death includes everything from beatings, rapes, Hate Crimes Against The Homeless: and setting people on fire. Hate Crimes America’s Growing Tide of Violence Against the Homeless: America’s Growdocuments the known ing Tide of Violence is the eleventh ancases of violence against homeless innual report documenting violence against dividuals by housed individuals in 2009. homeless persons. The report The violence continues and with fortyincludes descriptions of the cases, curthree known deaths, 2009 was the deadrent and pending legislation that would liest year for attacks on homeless people help protect in a decade and the second highest since homeless people, and recommendations NCH began tracking the violence in for advocates to help prevent violence 1999. NCH has found startling data in the against homeless number and severity of attacks. However, individuals. the reports also acknowledge that since the homeless community is treated so
Volume XII, Issue 6
Read original poem,
“I Will Never Be Homeless” on pg 9
Pic: Picdaus.com
Homeless People Report On Hate Crime Violence
During the Summer of 2009, the National Coalition for the Homeless, with the assistance of twenty AmeriCorps*VISTA Volunteers and fourteen VISTA Summer Associates, surveyed 1,343 homeless people in fourteen Florida counties concerning their experiences with hate crimes/violence. NCH volunteers asked an assortment of questions, and the resulting answers were both informative and alarming. When asked the question, “How do you (Continued on pg 7)
Defining a Hate Crime
* Charlie * Mr. Mike * Tiffany * Dvora * Ed Giampietro * Kristian Perez * Tommy & Joe * Geralyn * Little Ryan * Earnest Bowens & Family * Ed & Ruth * Rudy * Lisa * John McLean * Darren * Jan Cerrito * Rev. Patrick O’Shen * Angela Forrest & Family * Angelo * Maria Dragon
A
over a thousand incidents of crimes hate crime is defined by the U.S. committed against homeless individuDepartment of Justice’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as a bias als due to the housed offender’s bias crime and is a “criminal offense comof the victim’s housing status. In 2009 mitted against a person, property, or alone, forty-three homeless men and society that is motivated, in whole or women lost their lives to such violence. in part, by the offender’s These crimes of hate In 2009 alone, forty-three bias”1. Although the FBI are committed against a does not currently recog- homeless men and women lost community of vulnerable nize homeless individuals their lives to such violence. individuals in our country as a protected status, the who are at risk because National Coalition for the Homeless, they live outside or in public spaces. Many of our communities do not have during the past eleven years, recorded
(Continued on pg 6)
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Orlando homeless advocates win temporary victory in public feeding case By Brett Ader
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear arguments against enforcing a 2006 Orlando city ordinance that limits group public feeding in city parks to twice per year in any one area. The ruling is the latest in a four-year back-and-forth battle between homeless advocates and city officials over an ordinance that was twice been rejected as unconstitutional before a three-judge panel in July overruled the original trial judge, asserting that the claims of unconstitutionality were without merit. Glenn Katon, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who represents First Vagabonds Church of God, tells The
(Continued on pg 4)
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