Seven Days, a local free rag that covers politics, culture, food, and life in primarily northern VT, highlighted a disturbing problem extant in Burlington. There are street people who actually hang out on the street, people who have not been netted in the City’s social services. Shocking both sides say about the positions of the other. Both teams, for the sake of argument are made up of good, hearty, well-meaning people. One thinks that individuals have a right to the public streets no matter what they look like or how they earn a living; the other thinks that only people who have somewhere to go, preferably a job or a shop or a restaurant can use the throroughfares. To support the use of the police power to rid the paths of unattractive humanoids, the gendarmes rely on the public order and safety argument, sophistry which has stripped the right to assemble, press and almost the right to free speech of their intended protective shields. Frankly, I think it is because some don’t like to see the disadvantaged up close.
I have been talking with Jesse sporadically since I starting working and living in Burlington. He had a tough week. He lost his girlfriend and his job. Would not say where he was living. He stands tall and proud, willing to absorb the humiliation of having to ask for handouts.Every once in a while I give him a buck and ask how he is doing.
I am sure Larry won’t have the money to pay the fine, so he will probably be dragged before some magistrate, at some time, who will apply some statute and impose some consequence. Maybe it will only be a levy on his future earnings or lottery winnings, if he is lucky. We cannot incarcerate people just because they don’t have money; we have to make up some ordinance that charges them with violations against the public order; bring them before a magistrate, sometimes with an overworked, underpaid and undertrained public defender, and then come up with some solution that satisfies the goals of sentencing, which will never work in these cases, because the people targeted are never going to be like the ones don’t want them in their sights.
