Tougher laws considered against attacks on homeless

A rise in attacks against homeless people in 2007 has more states considering harsher penalties in hate crime laws for attacking a homeless person.
Legislation is pending in Ohio and Massachusetts and Alaska. In Alaska, the bill passed the Senate and House and awaits Gov. Sarah Palin's signature.

Attacks against homeless people increased from 142 attacks in 2006 to 160 attacks in 2007, says a report released Tuesday by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.

Twenty-eight of those attacks were murders, up from 20 murders in 2006. The report was based on media reports and other data collected by advocates for the homeless, the coalition said.

"This is about punishing people who take advantage of the most vulnerable in our society," says Ohio State Rep. Mike Foley, who introduced the state's bill. "There is too much of it going on."

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In 2007, Ohio had 12 attacks against the homeless, including one that resulted in a death, according to the annual study, titled, "Hate, Violence and Death on Main Street USA 2007."

A hate crime is usually defined in law as a crime motivated by a bias against a person's race, gender or other status. Among states considering stiffer punishment for attacks on the homeless, the homeless would be added as a protected group in hate crime laws.

Maine is the only state that has passed tougher penalties, allowing judges to consider the victim's status as a homeless person as a reason to impose longer sentences. California mandates specific training for police officers on dealing with crimes against the homeless.

A bill is pending in the U.S. House of Representatives that would require the FBI to track attacks on the homeless. The FBI currently tracks hate crimes based on a victim's race, gender, religion, disabilities and sexual orientation.

A separate bill also pending in the House would protect the homeless under federal hate crime laws.

Tuesday's report says that 86% of those who attack the homeless are young men under 25. Attacking the homeless "has become a new sport, almost a rite of passage," says Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Simone Manning-Moon, whose older brother Norris Gaynor was killed in 2006 by three men with bats in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has pushed to include attacks on the homeless in the state's hate crime laws. So far two efforts have failed.

"That tells you what legislative leadership thinks about the homeless, which is not much," she says. "It just gives license to people to continue preying on other people."

In 2007, Florida had 29 attacks on the homeless, more than any other state, with six leading to deaths. "These are real people with real families who love them no matter where they live," Manning-Moon says. "We miss my brother dearly. He didn't deserve what happened to him."