Dehumanization of homeless population causes violence against it, homeless advocate says
May 22—Violence is no stranger to Spokane's homeless population.
Besides Thursday's murder sentencing of Aaron R. Holder, a judge sentenced Steven P. White, 48, last month to 30 years in prison for fatally stabbing 44-year-old Shan Anderson, who was lying on the ground possibly sleeping, more than a dozen times in 2023 in downtown Spokane.
Last month, three teenagers brutally attacked a homeless man on the ground outside the downtown Spokane Public Library, leaving the man with skull fractures and brain bleeding, according to court documents. About 30 minutes later, one of the teens threw an electric scooter at a man sleeping in a sleeping bag on Sprague Avenue and Wall Street, court records show.
Donald Whitehead, executive director at National Coalition for the Homeless, described attacks on homeless people as a "crime of opportunity." Homeless people often don't have ties to the larger community and are not connected to their relatives, so the crimes may go unnoticed or may not be adjudicated in the same manner, he said.
Whitehead said the homeless population is more susceptible to violence because communities push to dissolve encampments, forcing them into isolated locations where they are more prone to be victims of violence.
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson that municipalities can criminalize sleeping outdoors on public property because it does not violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Last month, the Spokane City Council voted to not move forward with reinstating Proposition 1, the voter-approved anti-homeless camping law that the Washington Supreme Court had recently struck down.
Proposition 1 banned camping within 1,000 feet of parks, schools and licensed day care facilities, making violations a misdemeanor offense. The state Supreme Court argued the proposition had gone outside the legal bounds for a local initiative, though it did not make a ruling on the merits of the law, leaving it open for the City Council to reinstate the law, according to previous Spokesman-Review reporting.
Whitehead said many people who attack homeless people view them as less human, a narrative that has ramped up in certain states and led to more attacks on the homeless population. Oregon has one of the highest levels of crimes against unsheltered people, Whitehead said, and attributed it to the negative publicity around the Grants Pass v. Johnson case, noting the direct correlation between dehumanizing homeless people and the violence that's perpetrated upon them.
The Oregonian reported in February 2024 that a growing number of homeless people were being shot and killed in Portland. Five of the 15 homicides at that point in the year in the city involved a homeless person, the publication reported.
Whitehead said he expects the homeless population and violence against it to dramatically increase if President Donald Trump's budget proposal and the reconciliation bill, the latter of which cleared the House this week, are approved.
Trump proposed dramatic cuts to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That includes eliminating HUD's rental assistance program, including Section 8 vouchers, and allowing states to make their own rental assistance programs instead. The plan would include a two-year cap on rental assistance for able-bodied adults.
Whitehead said the cuts to HUD will make it much harder to get people out of homelessness.
The reconciliation bill proposes several changes to Medicaid, including work requirements for able-bodied adults. Whitehead said medical expenses are one of the reasons people can't afford housing.
The "cascading list of changes" will have negative effects, he said.
"People will die because of these changes," Whitehead said.
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