A Tale of Two Cities

By Tom deMers

“These campers are using municipal property illegally and our police have every right to shut them down.”                            
—Anchorage, Alaska Mayor Dan Sullivan

Summertime, but the livin’ ain’t easy for homeless people. The only folks who absolutely need to camp are pretty well forbidden to do that in areas they can access. Without saying it, cities are outlawing sleep, hoping that nocturnal harassment will drive homeless campers away, wherever “away” is. It’s classic NIMBYism practiced by homeowners and city officials alike. It seems camping is a luxury for people who already have a place to sleep.

In these situations the ACLU is the best friend homeless people have.

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Unavoidable Acts of Survival

By Tom deMers

The headline on the morning paper read, “Man [with] panties on his head picked up for begging nude” (Daily Camera 5/14/10). 

Impressive. BP spends millions to punch a hole in the ocean floor and gets big publicity from an oil spill, but here is a homeless guy making a splash of his own with nothing but a pair of women’s thong underwear, earning a buck. In Boulder, even the homeless share in the creativity and entrepreneurial zing.

And they do it on very little sleep. That’s the reason I was heading to Boulder that same day, joining a homeless sleep out smack in the middle of town on May 15, right next to city council headquarters, the same headquarters that had outlawed sleep on city property. Sleep during the day, okay. Sleep at night, no way.

City officials would disagree. Sleep is fine, they say; camping is the problem. Camping with tents, sleeping bags, blankets, ground cloths, anything that could be construed as “shelter;” shelter defined in the municipal ordinance to include, “without limitation, any cover or protection from elements other than clothing.”

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