Cranston Mayor Hopkin's homeless criminalization bill garners public outrage

"We are not Americans if we can't treat each other respectfully. You won't find yourself sleeping on the road or in a park because you like it. You do it because of the circumstances in your life."

Referring new bills to their respective committees, no matter how cruel in content the bill may be, is a routine function of legislatures. In most legislatures, before a bill can be voted on, it is vetted by a committee. This is where the public can submit testimony and legislators can debate the bill's merits - or lack thereof - but the bill Mayor Kenneth Hopkins submitted to the Cranston City Council on Tuesday so outraged the public and many council members that there was a serious debate held about whether or not to send the bill to a committee at all.¹

In the end, Mayor Hopkin's bill to criminalize homelessness was sent to a committee and held there, with no expectation of being sent to the full council for a vote.

The bill is a mess of spelling and grammar issues² but cleaned up, it reads:

“No person shall set up any shelter, either permanent or temporary, for housing within the limits of the City on any City-owned property. Said shelter shall be defined as any material erected to protect an individual from the natural elements, whether or not said structure is erected temporarily or permanently. Every person violating the provisions of this section shall pay a fine of $50, and shall immediately be issued a ‘No Trespass’ order from said property. Additionally, any structure erected shall immediately be removed by the individual. Should the structure remain on City property for more than 24 hours after the individual is issued a notice of fine and trespass order, the property shall be removed by the Department of Public Works and discarded.

“The Authority to issue any fine and no-trespass orders under this ordinance shall be in the jurisdiction of the Cranston Police Department and its sworn members.”

Six Cranston residents, in person and online, testified in opposition to the bill. The did not hold back their disgust:

Tom Wojick: I was here not too long ago against the ordinance to prevent people from panhandling. We're right back where we started. I can't say how disturbing [this] ordinance is to me. It made me think of Langston Hughes, the great American poet. In 1935, he wrote Let America Be America Again. I want to read a stanza from that poem:

“I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land. I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek - and finding only the same old stupid plan of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.”

This is how I see this ordinance. I also thought about a recent book by Adam Serwer. He wrote a book of essays called The Cruelty is the Point. Serwer wrote a book of searing essays that made the powerful case that real hope lies not in a sunny nostalgia for American greatness, but in seeing its history clearly and plain in all of its unadorned brutality - and this ordinance is brutal.

We are not Americans if we can't treat each other respectfully. You won't find yourself sleeping on the road or in a park because you like it. You do it because of the circumstances in your life. It could happen to me, it could happen to all of us. Why, when we have these situations, do we run and create an ordinance against panhandling or parking on the street?

Who does that affect? The people who can't have housing, can't have a swimming pool. Who does that affect? The people living in that dilapidated hotel? We wouldn't stand up for them. We only stand up for business. Business is what this city's about. It's not about its people and I'm tired of it. Let's make this about people, humanness, and kindness. There are logical things we can do to save people, not punish them, with proven results, not just an ordinance to move them along and hide them someplace else. That is not human. That's disgusting.

Debbie Flitman: It's been a long time since I've been to city hall to testify against anything. The last time was probably the panhandling bill. I heard about this proposed ordinance at six o'clock today and I changed my plans to come out and testify against this immoral, uncompassionate, inhumane plan to make homelessness criminal by removing people's tents and properties. May I also remind you that many of these people are your constituents? They vote.

I remember a few years ago when the previous mayor, Alan Fung, tried to criminalize panhandling. Do you remember this? Anybody? Do you remember how that worked out? It worked out that the city council cannot violate your constituent’s civil rights - and today you are trying to do it again. The last I knew, the right to adequate housing is a human right. It's not a luxury, it's a right. Most people who are unhoused and homeless struggle with mental illness and are unable to work. I'm not sure how the mayor can put his head on his pillow each night, how the mayor could teach this kind of hate to his children and grandchildren. I don't know.

Ironically, this proposed ordinance is titled, Public Peace, Morals and Welfare of Offences Against Public Peace and Decency. Public peace is not victimizing the victim. Morals? Whose morals? Not mine. Are you the Morality Police, Mayor Hopkins? Welfare? Whose welfare are you talking about here? By criminalizing homelessness, you are not supporting the well-being or welfare of our neighbors who may or may not have a brick-and-mortar roof over their heads. Offenses against public peace and decency? By supporting this ordinance, you are not representing peace or decency.

The way to resolve homelessness is not to criminalize it. The way to resolve homelessness is to provide safe shelter and healthcare and offer people help. This is not new, this is data-driven. House the people first.

I urge you not to support this ordinance, not to take my tax dollars and have another lawsuit. Leave the people alone unless you want to be compassionate and help them.

Gail Johnson: I'm a Doctor of Nursing Science and work in the City of Cranston. I work with some of your most vulnerable people - elderly folks and people who need care because they're vulnerable and have comorbidities like congestive heart failure and diabetes. Many of them struggle with care and we don't provide enough services. What if all of a sudden the Supreme Court said, “These people can't care for themselves so cities and towns have the right to place them in nursing homes?” Does that make it right? The Supreme Court once ruled that segregation was separate but equal and we had segregation.

Though you have the right to enact this ordinance, is it the right thing to do?

I'm a former homeless person and I lived underneath a bridge. Many of us went on to do great things because we received the help we needed. Somebody took an interest in us and cared to do the right thing.

We need to lift people up, not bring them down. I'm asking you to table this. Work with your housing providers, nurses, and people who are in the field who know what's happening - because that's what's going to cure us.

We have a lot of fear when we see unsightly things. We say, “My God, those people shouldn't be there” but they're there because there's a housing crisis. If you call for a shelter bed, there are 600 people ahead of you. Can you imagine? That's months and months of waiting. There's no place for these people to go.

I can't afford an apartment. It's two grand or $1,800 for a one-bedroom apartment. Plus you have to make your car payments. I live in a blended family. I live with my mother who's 86 years old, my son, his girlfriend, and two children because we cannot afford not to live together. We are pricing people out.

The least of our people are camping out in tents. They can't afford housing. We have people who can't afford to buy a home or pay rent. I'm asking you to work with people - don't push them down.

And what about the police who have to enforce these rules? What are we telling them? I can tell you that when we were living outside, policemen used to bring us water and pizza or food and try to help us to get out of the situation. Instead, we’re telling them they needed to ticket people because they're unsightly, angry, and don't look right.

This is all about how we feel. We have fear but fear should not motivate ordinances or laws in this country. Should we lean into that fear? No. If you went out and talked to some of these people experiencing homelessness [you would find] that they're very intelligent people. They just need a place where they can do the right thing - opportunities to do the right thing. We need to create that space. If we don't do better, we're less of a society. You took a pledge to be the government and government is about how we treat the least of our citizens. Do we treat them well or do we push them down? Whether you do this or not, it's up to you, but it's morally wrong and you need to lift people up.

Susan Blake: The introduction of [this] ordinance under new business tonight is a new low, even for this mayor. This anti-homelessness ordinance would allow police to fine and for the Department of Public Works to destroy the only belongings of individuals who set up shelter on city property. This is an inhumane penalty for those among us who have the least.

Tell me this - What has the mayor done in the last 43 months to eliminate homelessness or create shelter beds or affordable housing? Nothing. The strategy for homelessness, in the second-largest city in the state, has historically been “go somewhere else.” It's a pathetic attempt at making it seem like he's making the community safer because he has no real accomplishments to show.

This is a human issue. It should not be made into a regulatory one. I urge you to listen to that little voice in your heart that's telling you this is not right and please don't allow this ordinance to go forward and take effect.

Jess Salter: I speak on behalf of myself as a Cranston resident and as someone who works at one of the state's largest agencies addressing homelessness. This ordinance is so far from the way to address homelessness and we as a city cannot be a part of criminalizing homelessness. Homelessness in the State of Rhode Island has increased almost one hundred percent in the last handful of years. We are seeing record numbers of families who are homeless, who are living in places not meant for human habitation.

I know you realize this and that's probably where this ordinance comes from. There are many ways to make life better for people in Rhode Island and Cranston and this is not one of them. This is an area where we need to respond with compassion. We need to respond with a strategy and a real plan for the housing problems in Rhode Island.

If we want to address the real issue, let's talk about rent control. Let's talk about increasing shelter beds. Let's talk about a place where people can go - but to create a plan to remove people and their belongings is cruel and inhumane. We are at record high homelessness in this state and we are at a record low of shelter beds. There's such a gap in the space that we have to provide healthy, safe shelter for individuals and families, many of whom are dealing with extraordinary extenuating circumstances, including mental health struggles, physical health struggles, large multi-generational families - so many things that have complicated their individual lives and forced this situation upon them.

No one's choosing this. There's got to be a better way for us to respond as a city. I hope and pray that we do not fall into the list of cities in Rhode Island that choose to respond in such a cruel and mean-spirited way to our fellow citizens who are struggling and at their most vulnerable. I hope everyone responds to this by being completely disgusted and I hope that we will see it go away and for everyone to respond in a more compassionate way.

Drake Patton: I realize this is not the city council's ordinance and I thank you for that. I am disgusted by the mayor's ordinance and I echo Jess Salter’s comments. We are our brothers and sisters keepers. To imagine that this cannot happen to any of us is foolish. This should not go to committee because this is disgusting and below the qualities that we believe here in Cranston about being good neighbors to each other. Please do not criminalize unhoused people. It's simply wrong.

1. In my experience, most legislatures allow the Council President (or Speaker or Senate President) to refer the bills (new business) to relevant committees. In Cranston, this action requires a vote by the council. But when Council Vice President Lammis Vargas suggested voting against sending the mayor's bill to a committee, the council's legal counsel suggested that according to the city charter, they were required to vote in favor of sending the bill to a committee. A “vote” in which a legislator is required to vote a certain way is not really a vote at all.

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