Antipoverty activists say they are seeing signs of a retrenchment in U.S. cities’ pursuit of ordinances that restrict sleeping outdoors or feeding people in public, measures activists contend are aimed at curbing homelessness by criminalizing it, NPR reports. While some cities continue to pursue such laws, federal intervention on the issue may be “turning the ship around,” said Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
In August the U.S. Justice Department filed a brief backing the law center in a court challenge to a Boise, Idaho, anticamping statute. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has said it will consider communities’ efforts to prevent criminalization of homelessness in awarding $1.9 billion in upcoming homeless-assistance grants.
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