Michael Stoops Homeless Quotations

It hurts everyone, worst of all homeless people. Criminalizing homelessness is a waste of time and resources.

We definitely feel that it's a widespread epidemic around the country. It seems like there's been a spike in incidents. We're not sure if it's copycat attacks or open season on the homeless population.

Rather than arresting and jailing homeless people for violation, let's find out why they're homeless in the first place. There's a lack of day shelters, and affordable housing.

They (Sarasota) could have been taken off the mean list if they would have just done away with that ordinance. They continue to push and push and push, and push homeless people out of the city.

People think that homeless people are not human beings and that it's OK to hurt them and, most importantly, they think they can get away with it.

In many of the cases, it's a crime of opportunity. A group of teenagers is roaming the street on a hot summer night and they come across a homeless person who might be mentally ill or alcoholic. When they hurt a homeless person, they think they can get away with it -- and they think they won't be hurt in return.

The Atlanta ordinance says this is how Atlanta is solving Atlanta's homeless problem. You're not aloud to say anything. You're not allowed to ask what time it is; you're not allowed to ask for directions. You're not allowed to ask for food. We don't consider that to be a model ordinance.

Homeless people just take it on the chin and move to a more secluded area. We know that this is underreported.

They do this because they think they can, that they can get away with beating a homeless person and nobody will care, and the homeless won't be able to fight back.

There's been a trend with a few police departments becoming more sensitized toward the needs and issues that the homeless population face. These are the kind of partnerships we support.

The most common law that targets homeless people is some version of a panhandling law, whether it's aggressive panhandling or saying you can only panhandle in certain areas of a city.