Sweeps Don't Work

A "sweep" is a tool of a Western city to continually move their homeless from place to place, in order to make sure they know that they are not welcome in the city and to invite them to leave to another place.  Recently a friend of mine asked a police officer involved in the sweep where the homeless should go.  He said a national forest fifty miles away from the city.

Why sweeps don't work:

1. You can't use a stick to motivate someone who is beaten regularly

2. Homeless folks have molecules. If you move them from one space, they will have to take up another.

3. If neighbors complain about the homeless being under the freeway, they would like them worse on the sidewalk in front of their house.

4. To move homeless folks around means that they are more difficult for service agencies to find them, to help them and so to get them off the street.

5. 40 percent of homeless folks work, and forcing them to move on a regular basis threatens their ability to hold down a job.

Can you think of any more?