America’s Laws Make us Bystanders to the Homeless Crisis

Last December, bystanders filmed as a man who allegedly set a homeless woman on fire calmly sat down to watch her die. No one intervened—not even the police officer who strolled by as the woman, later identified as Debrina Kawam, was engulfed in flames.

Many have tried to make sense of how passengers could film but not intervene. Allow me to fill in the gap. Painful tragedies such as these are the consequence of decades of laws and policies that have conditioned society to treat homeless people as invisible. But ignoring America’s homelessness crisis is increasingly difficult to do. Most recent data suggests that more than 770,000 people experienced homelessness on a given night in January 2024, an 18% increase from 2023. Those passengers that stood by as a homeless woman burned alive aren’t anomalies–they are us, a nation of bystanders in the face of homelessness.

The American legal system has made many of us bystanders to this national issue. Even worse, our laws have justified the deaths of those experiencing homelessness. 

How America’s laws impact people experiencing homelessness

The bystander effect began more than a century ago with laws making the homeless invisible. In 1867, the U.S. passed its first “unsightly beggar ordinance,” deeming it unlawful for homeless people to appear in public.  The so-called “ugly law,” enacted in several states, criminalized the visibility of poverty, turning homeless people into public nuisances. The impact? If it is unlawful for a homeless person to be in public, then by extension, anyone who provides aid is viewed negatively as well. The “ugly laws” were eventually repealed, but left a lasting imprint. 

Last week, Atlanta city employees bulldozed a homeless encampment to prepare the area for crowded events honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In their hurry to destroy the tents, city employees did not check whether people lived in them. Cornelius Taylor, a homeless man, was killed during the clearing. Taylor, like so many other homeless people, was invisible. To that end, a 2021 report by the National Homelessness Law Center found that 48 states have laws criminalizing homelessness such as fines for sleeping on benches, sidewalks, or in public parks.

These laws not only push the homeless into invisibility, they also shape society’s consciousness of how to treat homeless people. Last week, I gave a homeless man a dollar and a woman passing by loudly remarked, “He’s probably living better than you” using a tone one would reserve for warning someone about a rigged slot machine. This brief interaction on a Brooklyn street corner didn’t happen in a vacuum. Communities in states across the nation like Colorado, Louisiana, and Texas have erected warning signs. For instance, in 2017 a town in New Hampshire posted signs that read, “Your generosity could lead to a fatality,” suggesting that homeless people may use donations to buy deadly drugs, thereby attaching shame and guilt to charity.

In some cases, people who fail to heed such signs that prohibit donating to homeless people can be given a citation. In other instances, police have ticketed or even arrested volunteers in California, Ohio, Texas and Arizona for feeding homeless people. A pastor was even found guilty of fire safety violations for allowing homeless people to sleep in his church. In Florida, a county fined a 71-year-old homeowner more than $90,000 for using his property to house homeless people. In South Dakota, a planning commission denied a church’s permit to operate a warming center to keep unhoused people safe in freezing weather.

This is how we became a nation of bystanders—policies that penalize anyone who interacts with homeless people or displays empathy.

How the American legal system can help 

We need to move from being bystanders to advocates. The most crucial step is to promote policies that prevent homelessness in the first place. This includes supporting affordable housing initiatives and homeless shelters in your community. One of the major obstacles to such initiatives is residents filing lawsuits to block affordable housing and homeless shelter efforts.

Trying to limit affordable housing and homeless shelters simply does not change the number of people experiencing homelessness. Homeless people will still live in your neighborhood—your support simply decides whether that happens on the sidewalk or in supportive housing.

The next step is to challenge persistent myths about homeless people. For example, some people justify being bystanders to the issue of homelessness with statements like, “Homeless people are dangerous, so you shouldn’t intervene.” This idea often stems from seeing a deluge of news reports about homeless people committing violent acts. However, homeless people are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. A 2020 study by the National Coalition of the Homeless revealed that there were 1,852 reported incidents of violence against homeless people between 1999 and 2019—and 515 of those incidents resulted in a homeless person’s death. In Los Angeles, Miami and New York, killers have targeted and murdered groups of homeless people in a matter of days. In one case, an army veteran and his friend ventured out in the night looking to “fight a homeless guy” in Utah. The two drove to a homeless encampment and encountered 28-year-old Brian Racine asleep next to a campfire. Within an instant, Racine was shot dead.

Lastly, we need to overturn the laws that encourage us to ignore and degrade people experiencing homelessness. Last June, the Supreme Court held that local governments can enforce criminal penalties against anyone sleeping outside. This case began when a city in Oregon did not have adequate homeless shelters, leading to an overflow of homeless people on the streets. Private citizens should not be penalized for helping their unhoused neighbors, especially at a time when the government—local and national—won’t. We cannot afford to be bystanders any longer.