Taking inspiration from a recent Supreme Court ruling, Worcester County officials say sleeping on public property could go from a civil infraction to a criminal misdemeanor, a move that specifically targets the homeless.
“When the intersection happens between behavioral health issues and homelessness, and then criminality or victimization of others in that area, that’s where my office comes into play,” said Worcester County State’s Attorney Kristin Heiser. “It’s not our goal to prosecute the same person for the same type of low-level offense over and over again. We’d rather resolve the underlying problem.”
Under the guidance of Heiser and county attorney Roscoe Leslie, Worcester County’s Board of Commissioners says it will work in the near term to pen a draft ordinance that revisits penalties for sleeping on land owned by the county. Any such bill would then be subject to a public hearing.
Heiser said the goal of what she called an encampment ordinance is to provide a tool for law enforcement, “to make sure that the community is safe from the other effects these sort of individuals can have sometimes,” she told the commissioners at the meeting.
The commissioners discussed the issue at length during a Jan. 14 meeting with the input of several officials from the county’s social services agencies.
The biggest issue when trying to help the homeless population – or asking them to move along, if disruptive – is simply figuring out where to put them, said Sandy Kerrigan, who works on behavioral health programs with the county’s health department.
She added how the West Ocean City nonprofit Diakonia, which has shelter space, “is great and wonderful – but it’s often full.”
It appears to me that “Social Services” follows the BigPharma model of treating symptoms and ignoring the cure. Let the homeless shelter in the public library facilities, just not in the children’s section with the pornography.