Nothing says it's the holiday season like more laws to criminalize poverty

author : Pat Tassoni topic : homelessness | Olympia City Council | Olympia Sidewalk Ordinance

by Pat Tassoni

Attempting once again to sanitize downtown into a shop-only area, certain members of the Olympia City Council have recently proposed a number of ordinances targeting the poor in our community. These ordinances include a ban on car camping, no panhandling, no sitting on the sidewalk, and a no sale of fortified wine. The city has considered such items before. The city claims it is responding to complaints from "Business," as presented by the Olympia Downtown Association (oda) and the Olympia Police, but as usual are unable to present any real statistical data demonstrating that things are getting worse or who is doing what. Meanwhile the police chief has admitted in a committee meeting that it is the bar patrons that urinate downtown, not the homeless.

The council previously held public forums on these same issues. The overwhelming community response has always reflected an understanding and agreement that there are already enough laws regulating public behavior such as panhandling and blocking the sidewalks, etc. Expanding police powers to criminalize legal behavior will not be tolerated in Olympia as a means to criminalize poverty and harass the homeless. This community instead wants the council to address some of the underlying problems, such as not having enough shelter to meet the needs of the homeless. The city should fund shelter, as well as transitional and affordable housing, so people don't have to sleep in their cars or outside. It costs over twice as much taxpayer money to keep someone incarcerated than to pay for them to be housed with services.

An organized response to show that the Olympia community does not support these draconian ordinances was held with a "sit-in" on the downtown sidewalks before Artswalk in October. It broadly defined downtown as consisting of users, recreationists, tenants and shoppers to counter the perception that downtown is only a shopping district.

Safe and viable downtown

One of the reasons repeatedly touted for these ordinances is to clean up downtown and make it safe to draw in more shoppers. Is it just a coincidence that this is happening again during the holiday shopping season? Downtown is safe. In fact, between the last round of proposed ordinances and today, Olympia was ranked the third safest city in the nation -- it doesn't get any safer than here. Also downtown has exactly the number of vacant businesses that experts say is needed to keep the marketplace in check. Over and over again, the specter of "public safety" has been raised by the oda crowd to pass new laws. But they shoot themselves in the foot by constantly bringing up how dangerous downtown is in the hopes to project how safe it is there. And this has been going on for the past 20 years.

Not everyone's needs can be met within the confines of downtown -- people will live elsewhere, work elsewhere, recreate elsewhere, shop elsewhere, and hang out elsewhere. The city could go much further in developing downtown with regulations targeted not at folks who already value downtown but aimed instead at eliminating sprawl and capping the size of outlying retail stores. The downtown business association should lead such a move, but they won't even speak out against their biggest threat: Wal-Mart. Instead the business association is willing to bite the hands that feed them, hoping that more or bigger hands are just waiting in the wings.

Then there is the whole debate on what public space is. It is indeed a sad commentary on our society if public space is only seen as a commercial venue, and laws continue to be proposed and implemented to weed out the non-consumers (or in this case, the not-spendy-enough-consumers). The reality is that these laws, while targeting an "expendable" class, actually insult and infuriate many of the regulars who do spend time and money downtown. With new laws like these, the difference between the downtown and the mall get ever smaller...

Perception and discrimination

People of different classes dress and behave differently just as people from different cultures do. Those differences should not be the basis for assumptions about those people or be a reason to feel unsafe. White Americans used to be afraid (and some still are) of blacks, natives, Japanese, and gays and lesbians. Those attitudes are the problems of the perceiver and should not be made the responsibility of the target.

Unfortunately poverty is not a protected status, and so discrimination based on it is permitted. What is right is not always a matter of law. What is legal is a not always right. Our recent past shows how the faces, abilities and manners of diversity have changed (as they will continue to change to finally include everyone). Not too long ago women neither had the right to vote nor could buy a car; racial segregation was tolerated and enforced by laws against people of color; and homosexuality was seen as a disease. Imagining laws against these classes today is as outrageous and backwards as our children will see the proposed Olympia ordinances against poverty and the homeless now taking form.

Get involved

In addition to voting with your dollars by shopping downtown and contacting your city councilmembers, come to a forum being hosted by the Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace on December 6th. Watch for internet postings and flyers for further details this November.

For more information on this topic, view these past writings on the subject:

http://whatthistownneeds.blogspot.com/2006/09/pat-tassonis-guide-to-downtown-olympia_27.html

http://www.olywip.org/old_site/www.olywa.net/wip/Feb2002/Class_Glass.html

http://www.olywip.org/wip/wip/authors/pat.tassoni

Pat Tassoni has been in Olympia for over 30 years, which is longer than most of the transients we call the Olympia City Council, who came in the 80s. He has lived and worked in historical buildings downtown for the past 20 years and been fighting city policies that target the poor for nearly 15 years now.

Brief chronology of downtown:

1950: Downtown businesses want Sylvester Park turned into parking lot

1980: City approves Capital Mall; all department stores leave downtown

1985: Olympia police create walking patrol downtown

1986: Criminalization of skateboarding downtown

1987: Outlawing of teen dance clubs downtown

1990: Criminalization of loud car stereos

1990: Olympia Downtown Business Association officially forms

1991: Outlawing of cruising downtown

1993: Criminalization of "aggressive panhandling"

1994/5: Attempted stop of transitional housing for homeless (Fleetwood)

1995: Proposed criminalization of car camping

1995: Proposed outlawing of fortified wine downtown

1996: Outlawing of Olympia AIDS Prevention Project needle exchange

1996/7: Attempted banning of sitting on the sidewalk downtown

1999/2000: Criminalization of graffiti

2001/2002: Proposed criminalization of camping

Proposed criminalization of car camping

Proposed outlawing of fortified wine downtown

Attempted establishment of panhandling zone

2005 - Downtown designated 'Business District,' with over 60 businesses objecting, and gives extra funding to ODA