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CURRENT  ACTIVITIES  ON  CIVIL  RIGHTS  CAMPAIGN

WRAP is releasing preliminary results from outreach to over 668 homeless and poor people in 13 communities across the United States! Over the past year, we have been documenting people's experiences with the criminal justice system for survival-related "crimes."

Outreach Fact Sheet Download>>
"Right to Exist" Article Download>>

The USA-Canada Alliance of Inhabitants helped WRAP take this effort broader and together we are calling on our members and allies throughout the United States and Canada to join us on April 1, 2012 for a bi-national day of action against this increasing pattern of criminalizing the mere presence of poor and homeless people in our communities.

If you would like to add your communities voice to this effort download the forms below, complete the surveys, and send them into us. We will add to the national results and send you your local results as well!

English Form                       Spanish Form

English Outreach Form Download>>
Spanish Outreach Form Download>>

WRAP thanks the Diane Middleton Foundation for the generous support that
helped make this outreach and organizing possible.

Because federal responses to homelessness have been so ineffective in meeting local needs, a growing number of localities are employing broken windows policing to remove homeless people from public view. These punitive measures involve gross human and civil rights violations.

Driven largely by the concerns of business improvement districts and supported by residents uncomfortable with the unsightliness of extreme poverty, cities across the country have reactivated archaic vagrancy laws and passed new "quality of life" ordinances to clearly demarcate urban boundaries and enforce who belongs where.

In the pursuit of "safe," "sanitized," and "livable" cities, public funds are being redirected from social services to homeless courts and jails. But nightsticks and jail time cannot address the lack of housing and services that put millions of people on the streets in the first place.

This nationwide pattern has escaped civil rights protections because these ordinances are drafted very carefully to appear as if they apply equally to all people, but enforcement is very much impacted by people’s skin color and housing, economic, and mental health status.

WRAP is entering this civil rights battle with a combined strategy of street outreach, organizing, documentation of homeless people being denied their rights, and legal defense.  None of us can do this alone. We must work in solidarity with one another to defend those being attacked and pressure local governments to end these discriminatory programs.

Give us a call if you are interested in learning more.