Civil(ity) War

Does Houston have to get tougher on street people with new laws?

A A A Comments By Samantha Liskow Thursday, Jul 22 1999

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'"My personal feeling is that there is a more realistic solution than the civility ordinances," Bell says. "The ordinances only deal with them while they are on the street." But the councilman says he would consider endorsing the ordinances if they were coupled with "other types of efforts that deal with the problem in a constructive way."

Earl Hatcher, who oversees single-room occupancy housing for low-income and homeless people, doubts the argument that the ordinances can help the homeless. "I don't think we need to create new laws," he says. "I want to help people who are in such a mental state that they're eating out of garbage cans, rather than ticketing them."

Daniel Perlaky

Leo Tucker would be one of those targeted by proposed ordinances.

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Bill Rogers, a Houston American Civil Liberties Union board member, calls the ordinances an attempt to "sanitize" the street. "Where are they supposed to go? The coffee shop at the Hyatt?," he says. "There's nowhere in the Constitution that says we're supposed to take care of homeless people, but we can choose out of kindness to help."

Others complain that no one has made it clear how the ordinances will alter Houston's street-people landscape. There's already a pile of laws on state and city books pertaining to things like drinking, trespassing and littering, that could be used to control unruly street people.

Captain Brown disputes that, saying current laws fall short in policing panhandling. For example, he says derelicts have to be completely blocking a sidewalk before they can be prosecuted under the existing ordinance.

Peter Linzer, a University of Houston law professor, worries that the civility ordinances will allow cops too much room to "lean on the homeless people." "If you drop your watch in the dumpster and you look for it, you can be pretty sure that they won't mess with you," he says. "But if you are a bum and you're doing that, chances are they're going to mess with you."

Leo Tucker might agree with that. After being told to get off his favorite curb, he gathered his wrist brace, his bundle of bedding, and his pink Ziploc bag of books, and shuffled across the street. He resumed reading, silently, on a sun-baked sidewalk. When two reporters approached, his face lit up. "I'll do an interview if you'll sit with me over there," he says, pointing to the curb where the cop sat in his car.

Accompanied by the journalists, he got to sit undisturbed on that shady curb for almost an hour, basking in the policeman's gaze.

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