California Homeless Person's Bill of Rights and Fairness Act
4 Redding California police officers surround a homeless man as he sits in back of city hall. The eagerly awaited and compassionately long overdue California "Homeless Person's Bill of Rights and Fairness Act" passed its first hurdle in the Assembly Judiciary Committee on a 7-2 party line vote. In Los Angeles the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that a city law prohibiting sleeping, sitting or lying on public byways constituted "cruel and unusual punishment," because the city has so few shelter beds its street people have nowhere else to stay. The same is true in Redding California. Many California cities like Redding criminalize homelessness, giving tickets for camping (sleeping) and sitting, often taking their necessary survival gear (tents, sleeping bags ) telling them to leave town and violate them for what you and I may very well take for granted... everyday living and life-sustaining act...