Don't We Already Have a Bill of Rights? Why Do We Need Another One?

People living without conventional shelter need our own Bill of Rights. Some of us are unsheltered and also counted in other categories as well: women, disabled, veterans, elderly, abused, unemployed, foreclosed, immigrants, mentally handicapped, addicted, etc., etc.

Some of those groups have Bills of Rights as well. Sometimes they're called things like The Declaration of the Rights of the Disabled Persons or the Deaf Chilr's Bill of Rights.

The United States has a Bill of Rights. Make that The Bill of Rights. The earlier Britsh version is called The Declaration of Rights.

Why do groups, whole countries, and even individuals have bills of rights?

Because if you want rights, you must claim them. And the louder and more cleverly you claim them, the better.

-You need a bill of rights when you declare your independence.

-You need a bill of rights if you want recognition, support, and sympathy for your cause.

-If you have a series of things you want and you're not getting, you want to lay claim with a bill of rights.

So that is why people who sleep on the ground, in vehicles, or in shelters need a Bill of Rights for Unsheltered People.

Rhode Island recently passed a “Homeless Bill of Rights.” We believe California and the nation should do likewise. And the sooner the better.

The unhoused of Palo Alto have suffered a number of discriminatory setbacks in the last 40 years. People used to camp along San Francisquito Creek, the border between Palo Alto and Menlo Park.

Then the City of Palo Alto “parkfied” it and no one is allowed to sleep in a City park. That is a rule without any point other than to discourage us differently-sheltered folk from hanging around.

Just like Palo Alto's sit/lie ordinance. Purely a “homeless not welcome here” nuisance for unsheltered types—no other point. The list goes on and on.

We need to draw a line, start moving the other way—toward making life more livable for the unsheltered (who are really just the rest of us only further down the economic slide from middle class to out-on-your-ass) and stop the persecution of the poor.

Support the California Bill of Rights for the Unsheltered. And the U.S. Bill of Rights for the Unhoused. Because it's time. Because we're people. Because as surely as the sun shines, there will be those of you reading this now in your nice home who will wake up one day as one of us, like it or not.

Because if we don't name our rights and claim them, we don't have them. And YOU won't have them either--when you're reading this where we are now--on the street, in a Mc Donald's, in your vehicle, in a shelter, in the library, leaning on your worldly possessions in a shopping cart, at a garbage can you just scavenged for recyclibles.

We are you, only further ahead in this multi-year economic slide from grace to flat-on-your-face.

You couldn't spend what you have left of your precious resources any better than helping us and very possibly yourself or a family member in the not too distant future.