Expert: Philip Sweeting - 8/16/2004

Question
I'm a law student in Israel and under survay i'm doing comparing the israeli system to the american one i would appriciate your help to understand the contrevarsy between the act of vagrancy and the protected rights in the constitution ?

Answer
Vagrants or the homeless have the same rights as anyone else. Problems sometimes occur when they tresspass on private property or panhandle (ask for money) in front of businesses. That will cause potential customers of the business to shop elsewhere which results in the business losing money/customers.

The police are often called to deal with these problems and at the same time not violate the homeless persons rights. For instance, I remember an incident where a homeless person would go to the public library and stay there all day. Due to his appearance, dirty, smelled etc.,both the employees and patrons were concerned with him being there. But as long as he was not causing a disturbance he had every right to be there and since it was a public building he could not be forced to leave.

Some cities have local laws in place to try and keep the homeless out of their cities such as no sleeping in public parks and most parks close at a certain time to everyone. One city even had a local law that prevented people from going through trash cans which the homeless often do when looking for food. In our system they can be arrested for violating the local law until the law is challenged and determined to be unconstitutional.

Not sure if this is what you were looking for but hope it helps.