BeLoved Asheville is an intentional community of people on the streets and margins of our city, working to end homelessness, poverty, and prejudice. BeLoved’s Homeless Voice Project is about amplifying the voice of people who are living on the streets and in shelters on issues concerning homelessness and the housing crisis in Asheville.
In a procession and press conference today, the Homeless Voice Project presented public data concerning the arrests and citations of people who are homeless. The data reveals that over the past 10 years, there’s been an increase in arrests and citations for trespassing for individuals who are homeless. These citations and arrests levy fines on the poorest of the poor, give people an arrest record which creates further obstacles to finding a job or housing, and costs taxpayers a great deal of money.
BeLoved Asheville is calling on the city for a simple solution — “Stop charging people with trespass when they’re homeless. Just ask people to move.” Rev. Amy Cantrell of BeLoved Asheville.
The data was collected from 2005-2016 to correspond with the City’s 10-year plan to end homelessness. This plan was built on the fact that housing people is cheaper than jailing them. The data reveals that in these 10 years homelessness has not ended and the City is criminalizing the homeless through the increase in trespassing charges.
Homelessness is a public health emergency, not a public safety issue.
BeLoved Asheville hopes to work with leaders to reduce these numbers. They believe that taxpayer money ?could be better utilized ?by diverting those funds to support people moving from the streets and shelters into housing and to stop contributing towards people who are homeless having a criminal record that only makes it more difficult for them to obtain jobs and housing.
Today’s press conference was part of the national campaign, “Houses Not Handcuffs” launched by the National Coalition of the Homeless.
BeLoved Asheville partnered with Code for Asheville to obtain public records — citation and arrest data from the Asheville Police Department. Code For Asheville’s goal is to use this data as the start of a larger initiative to empower the community to access and analyze public information and data. In October 2015, Asheville passed an Open Data Ordinance to improve the availability of government data sets to the public.
What to do:
- Call City Council and the Asheville Police Department and let them know that you would like to see a decrease in the number of arrests and citations for trespassing for people who are homeless. “Please just ask them to move.” Let City Council know that you would like to see that money diverted towards programs like BeLoved Asheville and others that support people who are homeless moving from the streets and shelters into housing. Contact BeLoved Asheville to learn more.
- Encourage City of Asheville to advocate for the release of a regularly updated, complete public data feed of all citations issued in Asheville. An improved data feed would allow the community to engage with our local government in an informed, data-driven manner. Contact Code for Asheville to learn more.
See the data:
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