Targeting D.C. homeless may soon be hate crime
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
June 4, 2009
Legislation before the D.C. Council would make it a hate crime to attack one of the District’s estimated 6,228 homeless people because they live on the streets.
Councilman Phil Mendelson added homeless people to the city’s list of protected classes as part of a broad crime bill he introduced in February, which may be considered by the full council later this month. And Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh offered a standalone bill Tuesday.
“It’s a despicable development that there are some who take sport in attacking homeless people,” Cheh said.
The District’s protected classes are: “race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, personal appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, family responsibility, physical disability, matriculation, or political affiliation.”
A person convicted of a hate crime faces up to 50 percent more time behind bars and a 50 percent higher fine.
Maryland is the only state to include homelessness in its hate crimes statute. Gov. Martin O’Malley signed the bill last month.
The National Coalition for the Homeless reported 774 documented acts of violence committed against homeless people between 1999 and 2007 — 217 of which resulted in death. The list only includes acts of violence by “housed people” against victims selected because they are living on the streets.
The coalition has lobbied both Cheh and Mendelson for a D.C. bill, said Michael Stoops, its executive director. It would “send a message,” the organization has said, that “homeless individuals are not second-class citizens and deserve the same protections as historically targeted groups.”
Cheh noted three examples of recent D.C. assaults, all of which occurred as the victims slept. There was a man repeatedly struck in the head in McPherson Square, another beating on the 2100 block of K Street, and the brutal murder of 61-year-old Yoshio Nakada last Christmas Eve outside the Watergate complex.
“A person sleeping on the streets is a lot more vulnerable than someone standing up who can look you in the eye,” said Michael Ferrell, executive director of the D.C. Coalition for the Homeless. “It’s despicable, and that’s why I strongly support adding it to the list of hate crimes.”
