Sacramento Homeless have rights too

[Today in the Bee is a story on the plight city's homeless. One thing that caught my eye was the fact that rather than trying to solve the problem, most of the efforts have been to simply move them from one place to another, which is only a temporary non-solution and which is only superficial at best. Another thing that caught my eye was that a lawsuit has been filed in

... U.S. District Court on behalf of the Sacramento campers argues that the city's practice of rousting campers, issuing citations against them for sleeping outside and sometimes destroying their belongings is illegal.

And they probably have a good point when you consider the $2.35 million dollar class-action settlement last year in Fresno in which

...The court had already determined that Fresno’s practice of immediately seizing and destroying the personal possessions of homeless residents violates the constitutional right of every person to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

I think the city had better pay attention and find a solution]

Sacramento seeks solutions for its wandering army of homeless
By Cynthia Hubert
chubert@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008 | Page 1A

It was a chilly November night on Bannon Street.

In front of the Union Gospel Mission, where men praised God in exchange for a hot meal and a thin mattress, a breeze rippled across a row of colorful tents.

More than 100 people were making their home here, creating a fragile community of the pitied and loathed.

Some of them sprawled on dirty sleeping bags on the sidewalk, waiting their turns for one of the beds inside. Some perched on rickety chairs outside their dome tents, drinking King Cobra and telling stories. Their bicycles and clothes and trash were scattered everywhere. They hardly seemed to notice the large rats that prowled the premises in search of bits of discarded food.

The weather has since turned bitingly cold, and the makeshift campsite just north of downtown Sacramento has vanished. Police, responding to complaints from the neighborhood, have chased the homeless men and women away. But the raggedy masses have not gone very far, and they are almost certain to return, only to be rousted again.

It is a chess game that most everyone agrees has to end.

A lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of the Sacramento campers argues that the city's practice of rousting campers, issuing citations against them for sleeping outside and sometimes destroying their belongings is illegal. The suit proposes, among other things, that the city establish "high tolerance" campgrounds where law enforcement will allow homeless encampments, acquire one or more vacant lots for "dignity villages" similar to one in Portland, and develop an indoor "tent city" where people could live for lengthy periods.

[...]

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1461887.html