Freedom Sleepers write: Beginning last July 4th, advocates for people experiencing homelessness, including the Freedom Sleepers, have been working to directly address the criminalization of homelessness and for the repeal of the city’s camping/sleeping ban. Activists have been consistent in their position that ordinances prohibiting and criminalizing lying, sitting, and sleeping in public are unconstitutional and such laws pose a grave danger of being selectively enforced against an entire class of people. In August, this position found unexpected support from the Obama Administration.

A Statement of Interest submitted by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in the U. S. District Court case of Janet F. Hall, et. al v. City of Boise, et. al reflected a dramatic shift in federal policy away from criminalizing homelessness. The statement articulated a legal framework that went to the heart of homelessness. “When adequate shelter space exists, individuals have a choice about whether or not to sleep in public. However, when adequate shelter space does not exist, there is no meaningful distinction between the status of being homeless and the conduct of sleeping in public. Sleeping is a life-sustaining activity—i.e., it must occur at some time in some place. If a person literally has nowhere else to go, then enforcement of the anti-camping ordinance against that person criminalizes her for being homeless.

Read More | See Also: Local ACLU Appeals for Legal Assistance to Challenge Camping Ban