Robert L. Terrell

The Homeless Court, which San Francisco’s municipal officials have recently  been touting as an important, new component in their effort to eliminate chronic homelessness, provides an excellent focal point for discussing overall civic philosophy regarding endemic social problems.

The Homeless Court will primarily address indigents accused of so-called “quality of life crimes.” in the Tenderloin and South of Market sectors of the city.  Taken together, the two neighborhoods contain San Francisco’s largest concentrations of desperately poor people.  As a result, they contain a higher percentage of homeless people, and “quality of life” criminals thanany comparable neighborhoods in the city. 

The Homeless Court will provide a special forum where homeless people can resolve their outstanding warrants and criminal cases.  The ramifications are important and encouraging.  If nothing else, the move to establish the court is clear evidence that San Francisco’s effort to eliminate chronic homelessness remains active, if not always hugely successful.

The positive impact of the proposed Court can probably be best understood within context of the legal nightmare experienced by far too many homeless people.  During the course of any given year, a typical homeless person can easily receive thousands of dollars in citations from police officers.  When they fail to appear in court, fines proliferate.  The net impact is that many homeless people are trapped by an ominously growing mountain of debt that make it virtually impossible for them to work their way out of poverty, and thereby acquire the capacity to rejoin mainstream society. 

 The nation’s first Homeless Court was started in 1989 in San Diego after a small group of homeless veterans responding to a survey reported that they needed help with criminal cases.  This led in turn to the city establishing a community-based Homeless Court, which has proven to be an unqualified success.  As a result, Homeless Courts have been established in many California and counties.  Such courts have also been established in cities as diverse as Ann Arbor, Michigan and Phoenix, Arizona.

One of the most impressive aspects of the Homeless Courts is the unique, and wonderfully flexible, manner in which they engender close partnership between the law enforcement community and neighborhood level service providers.  For example, the San Diego Homeless Court holds sessions once a month in community shelters.  A judge, a clerk, a public defender and a prosecutor attend each session of the court.  The group works together on each case in order in order to exert a “rehabilitative” impact on the life of each person appearing before the judge.

The American Bar Association (ABA) is deeply involved in the Homeless Court movement, and it distributes highly detailed manuals to officials in cities and counties seeking to follow San Diego’s example.  The following excerpt, taken from the ABA guidebook titled “Taking the Court to the Streets,” provides the following comment regarding the philosophical orientation of Homeless Courts:

 “The philosophy behind this unique program is rehabilitative rather than punitive, and no one is taken into custody.  They key players involved in the program realize that outstanding criminal warrants often preclude homeless people from accessing vital services such as employment, housing, public benefits, and treatment for mental health and/or substance abuse problems.”

In keeping with this thoroughly positive, and oh so practical approach, each homeless person who appears before the court leaves the session in possession of a specific, individualized, plan for self improvement, which typically includes regular contact with appropriate service agencies.  All this is extremely good, and the Newsom administration deserves high praise and sustained encouragement for taking the steps necessary to establish a Homeless Count here in San Francisco.

 It seems important to specifically note that the concept of rehabilitative justice is one that the overall community should embrace because it will probably need to be situated at the heart of whatever social transformation we mount to eliminate chronic homelessness.  Using the concept, we can move beyond current status quo, which unfortunately relies on the use of too many programs and procedures that are manifestly unsuccessful. 

 These include practices such fining homeless people for loitering, routinely excluding so-called unruly children from schools, returning people to prison for minor probation violations, prosecuting drug addicts as common criminals, denying credit to people who have suffered financial problems in the past, etc.

Most such practices are based on the notion that offenders should be punished.  That’s the rationale behind the draconian lengths of prison sentences here in the United States, which tend to be among the longest imposed by any developed nation.  Unsurprisingly, the hapless victims of such punishment are more often harmed more than helped.   As a result, in far too many instances, the long-term results are bad for society, and worse for the punished individuals. 

Conversely, interventions based on the concept of affirmative support and comprehensive, rehabilitation provides options for more positive outcomes.  For example, it doesn’t take a lot of time or effort to understand the plethora of positive ways in which this society’s poorest individuals and communities would be positively enhanced should the prison system embrace the concept of rehabilitative justice, and thereby transfer its mission from soul and life destroying punishment to service, encouragement and unflagging support.   In addition to the large number of individuals salvaged, such a transformation would almost certainly engender an exponential expansion in positive outcomes in the communities from which prisoners, and their potential contributions, are typically removed.

The key point to be understood is that our society is sorely in need of an overall reform of its fundamental approach to social problems.   The required reforms should be based on a comprehensive embrace of the concept of rehabilitation for those experiencing crippling difficulties. 

 Consider the case of public education.  If educators were to embrace the concept of rehabilitative service, the long-term benefits to society would be bold and extensive.  One of the most immediate, positive results would be a precipitous decline in the appallingly large number of young people who dropout of school long before it is good for them or society.

 Thus, a great deal rests on the success or failure of San Francisco’s effort to incorporate a Homeless Court into the array of initiatives it is pursuing regarding its efforts to eliminate chronic homelessness.   Assuming the best, the proposed court will alleviate the legal burdens of the city’s, poorest, most defenseless, residents.  The best outcomes will also include a model for cooperation and creativity that can serve as a beacon for many other sectors of government.

 Assuming the worst, the Homeless Court will never rise to its potential, and thereby serve as a site for the exercise of class-based Apartheid, hidden away from the witnessing eyes of the larger community.

Let’s hope for the best.