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CA: Land of obstruction
SacBee
Updated homeless ‘bill of rights’ passes CA legislative committee
An amended version of a bill that would extend new protections to California’s homeless population cleared the Assembly Judiciary Committee on Tuesday morning.
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, framed Assembly Bill 5 as an attempt to create a statewide baseline of homeless civil rights, citing a proliferation of municipal ordinances cracking down on behavior like lying or sleeping on the sidewalk as examples of the “criminalization of poor people.”
“Today numerous laws infringe on poor peoples’ ability to exist in public space, to acquire housing, employment and basic services and to equal protection under the laws,” Ammiano said at a Tuesday morning hearing.
Ammiano’s legislation faced a backlash from critics who said the bill would sanction behavior like urinating in public while exposing businesses to new litigation, undercutting the will of voters who had passed local ordinances and handcuffing city-level efforts to deal with homelessness. The California Chamber of Commerce included AB 5 on its annual list of “job killers” because it imposes “costly and unreasonable mandates on employers.”
The amendments addressed those concerns, Ammiano and supporters of the bill argued. A widely derided provision establishing “the right to engage in life sustaining activities” including “urinating” was deleted. Another amendment jettisoned language prohibiting discrimination by business establishments.
But those changes were not enough to allay the concerns of critics like the League of California Cities, which argued that the bill still imposes onerous new requirements. Lobbyist Kirstin Kolpitcke pointed to a provision requiring governments to compile statistics on arrests and citations for offenses like loitering or obstructing sidewalks.
The bill would also bar local law enforcement from applying laws governing things like eating, sitting or panhandling in public places unless the county has satisfied a set of requirements that include a relatively low unemployment rate, a short wait for public housing and readily available public assistance.
“The city does not control the county’s numbers or what they do or do not provide,” Kolpitcke said.



grayscape
April 24th, 2013
On the bright side, when most of us in Cali are homeless, we’ll have the right to live under any bridge we want.
Czar of Defenestration
April 24th, 2013
Squatters’ TENT CITY on Ammiano’s property!
persecutor
April 24th, 2013
Or a tent city on the front lawn of the Governor’s mansion.
Machloja
April 24th, 2013
Welcome to CA, Commies America
Alxandro
April 24th, 2013
Will they still have a right to work?
eternal cracker p
April 24th, 2013
I’ve been reading a bit different lately.
Bad Brad
April 24th, 2013
I heard coverage of this on the news radio station I listen to on the way into work this morning. The next story up was about a company closing down and sending 100 jobs to Arizona. It’s freaking amazing.
Billy Fuster
April 24th, 2013
I hope they pass every liberal bullshit law they can think of in California–crapping in public, masturbating in public, whatever. Make it completely unlivable so all the sane people leave.
majorityofone
April 24th, 2013
@ Billy Fuster
There’s sane people in California? News to me.
Unruly Refugee
April 24th, 2013
So if you find someone sleeping in the back seat of your car you have to give them a blanket and a pillow now?
Hey Kaliphornia!! There is something in your drinking water!!! Don’t drink it!!
Mary Jane Anklestraps
April 24th, 2013
Oh won’t Santa Monica and Venice beach be pretty?
They just got the pee smell out of Santa Monica when Ahhhnold was gubnah. It will come back with a vengeance now.
So long, 3rd street promenade!
Kairn
April 24th, 2013
And to think I was so disgusted with California (the land of my birth) I moved away in the mid 80′s. Ironically, back then there wasn’t very many homeless people. All I ever saw was the occasional scruffy looking backpacker on their epic Kerouac road trip.
The time frame within which California has been swirling down the crapper has exponentially sped up. This latest take on coddling boatloads of wastrels will surely be the cause of one gigantic, overflowing stink of the toilet bowl California has willed itself to become.
Lest I not smugly delude myself, after California, other states will follow suit. Including the one I currently reside in. Watching this train wreck play out across the land has been disheartening to say the least. We all know worse is to come. Doesn’t that just make your day?
Bill
April 24th, 2013
finally a problem Obama has experience in.
Obama can organize and agitate the homeless into striking for better pay, working conditions and public housing.
we will all be sorry once the homeless walk off the job!
Bad Brad
April 24th, 2013
You know the funny thing is I bet if you where to make that idiot democrat cognizant of the fact Homeless People don’t vote he would drop that bill like a hot rock.
California Unveils “Homeless Bill of Rights”, Right to Public Urination | Tony Johnson
April 26th, 2013
[...] alternative name for Assembly Bill 5 is the “Homeless Bill of Rights”, but a real alternative name for it might be the “Make California Towns and Cities into Public Toilets” [...]