Congress Considers Adding Homelessness to Hate Crime Protections

by Josie Raymond · 2010-09-29 15:36:00 UTC
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Today a Senate judiciary subcommittee held a hearing on widespread violence against the homeless. The hallowed halls of Congress couldn't be further from the alleys and bridges where many of these vicious attacks occur, but compassion is welcome everywhere.

Last year the subcommittee's chairman, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), introduced the "Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Statistics Act." If passed, it would allow the government to collect data on crimes committed against the homeless (as it does on crimes based on race, religion and sexuality).

Right now that data is collected by the National Coalition for the Homeless. A report issued by the organization in August showed that violence against the homeless in 2009 was the highest it's been in 10 years. Last year 43 homeless people were killed. In 2008, that number was 27. Cardin said he was "shocked and horrified" by reports of the killings. Urge your Senators to join Cardin to pass the bill and protect homeless constituents!

In the last 10 years, 288 homeless people have been fatally attacked. Who can argue that all of them were targeted for any reason other than the fact that there were outdoors and vulnerable? In the same time period, the FBI recorded 103 official fatal hate crimes. So adding homelessness to the official designation would triple the number of hate crimes resulting in death in the United States.

In his testimony at the hearing, Richard Wierzbicki, the Hate Crimes Task Force Commander in the Broward County Sheriff's Office in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, said brutal attacks were "almost a sport" for perpetrators. The National Coalition for the Homeless research shows that the vast majority of attackers are young men; 98 percent are male while 80 percent are under age 30. Florida trails only California in having the most attacks on the homeless.

The good news there is that Florida's hate crime protections for the homeless went into effect this week. A similar federal law, like Cardin's, would provide 50 times the benefit to homeless individuals across the country who know they're at risk every night.

Photo credit: Polina Sergeeva

Josie Raymond is a Change.org editor who has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.

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