Nat'l Corporate Privatization BIDs for Local Anti-Homeless Cadres

In major city after city across the United States a trained corps of quasi-security agents are being hired and trained by business to function outside the official law enforcement aegis to drive homeless people away from "business districts."

The parent corporation, SMS Holdings, has subsidiary units in several different service sectors, including maintenance and security. The company has been wooing and partnering with groups of local businesses banded together as "Business Improvement Districts" (BIDs) to install private-sector, uniformed teams to patrol these city areas and, in part, seek to target homeless populations with efforts designed to control and even remove homeless citizens. These "services" include preventing "panhandling" and "loitering."

The language is often veiled and euphemized, in public relations and sales use, so that calling the police and trying to rid the area of homeless is even sometimes expressed as "helping" them. For instance, in cities with little by way of any actual "services" for the homeless, the premise is still to "direct them to services" and "help" them get off the streets. Or at least the streets that the SMS Holdings subsidiary BLOCKbyBLOCK garners contracts to patrol and control in these ways.

From the company's  website promotion, under "Keep It Safe":

"Address 'Quality of Life' Violations to Include:
• Panhandling (non-aggressive & aggressive)
• Loud or intimidating Behavior
• Solicitation

The company currently claims contracts with 33 cities and is intently seeking more, with specializations in assisting the local BIDs to arrange for "matching fund" tapping of public monies, whether civic, state and/or federal.

Some cities, such as Berkeley, CA, with their teams of patrolling "Hosts", have installed their own programs of similar nature. But the authority and funding of such programs can get a bit complex. These programs are blending private businesses, corporate entities and civic, public agencies, powers and... funds, of course.

In Berkeley, it's most ironic to find even federal funds earmarked to "help the homeless" spent in this way, which includes being directed by the business "bosses" to call the police on the homeless since citizens weren't doing so enough, in their opinion, in order to help rid the area of these people. And the bulk of their $200,000+ budget goes to services that have nothing to do with helping homeless people, as such. Critics locally also complain that the Hosts spend too much time sitting in cafe's, "just hanging out", and other idle past-times -- even "loitering"?

While BLOCKbyBLOCK is proud of their brightly colored uniforms, Berkeley opted for plainer brown jackets. That's jackets -- but not quite brown shirts.

Image by the author.