The City of Des Moines is now enacting its new ordinances that penalize people, essentially, for being homeless. ACLU of Iowa Executive Director Mark Stringer had the following statement:
"Although the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that preventing people experiencing homelessness from sleeping in public does not violate the 8th Amendment's protections against cruel and unusual punishment, that doesn't mean it's open season on harassing unhoused people with few to no other options. Ordinances regarding unhoused people can still violate other constitutional rights and be challengeable on other legal grounds.
"Just because someone doesn't have housing doesn't mean that they don't have constitutional rights. They have the constitutional protections of due process, free speech, and others.
"It's particularly heartless that the Des Moines ordinances allow fining people who are homeless. The ordinances were improved from the version that was introduced—because community members who stood up for fairness and the protection of our most vulnerable pushed the city hard to make them—but should just be scrapped entirely because they remain deeply problematic.
"Instead of taking these coercive actions that only further harm people with no place to go and few options, Des Moines should be investing in real solutions to the problem of homelessness—not just endlessly punishing and moving people who are homeless out of sight. These include better shelter capacity and options, especially since the Des Moines area needs about three times its current shelter capacity.
"The ordinances' 'affirmative defense' component—which assumes that people have the resources and bandwidth to arrange a time in court to avoid being fined if they prove they're not able to afford the fine, or if they can prove that shelters are full—is ridiculous. These are people who often don't have a mailing address or even a phone. And the idea that homeless people, who struggle just to eat, can afford that fine, even a $15 fine, is nonsensical.
"We're likewise worried about people losing their few possessions in the camp sweeps contemplated.
"When you have no other place to stay—you can’t stay at a shelter, no one you might know locally will take you in, or you don’t even have a car to sleep in—what is a person supposed to do? We all need to sleep. Many people who are homeless don’t have any other option."
