The Daily Gut

HIT THE HOMELESS? IT'S A HATE CRIME!

As the region's transients reel from recent brutal attacks on the homeless, state lawmakers are considering a proposal that would make it a hate crime to assault a homeless person in Florida.

If the measure is approved, Florida would become the first state in the country to include the homeless among the groups protected under the state's existing hate-crime law.

ORLANDOSENTINAL.COM

digg this

The article reveals an interesting statistic - a claim that "unprovoked attacks of homeless people are on the rise across the United States. A 2006 report by the National Coalition for the Homeless found 142 attacks last year against homeless people, up from 86 the year before."

That's under three attacks per state, last year. More people get savaged by students bearing books about unicorns.

And, if you read the daily crime blotter in any city newspaper, you know that the statistic mentioned above is miniscule compared to the number of violent attacks perpetuated BY the homeless - crimes almost always entirely targeting innocent house dwellers.

So, if there should be any hate crime law created - it should be for people who live in houses, not for those who live on the streets.

It makes much more sense. Most homeowners harbor no hatred toward the homeless. If anything, folks owning property are happy to deliver piles of unwanted canned goods to the homeless, and even the more charitable (and misguided) of us will actually toss them spare change on the street - which the scamps often promptly spend on hair care products and large dose supplements of Vitamin E (it's great for the complexion).

Yet it's the homeless who hate the "homed." They hate us because we are sheltered, because we don't poop in our pants, and because we tend to have sores checked out well before they become necrotic. We also don't push people in front of subway trains.

My suggestion is, the next time a homeless person is arrested for stabbing a student or bricking a young woman on her way to work - we should double the sentence for incarceration. And their prison? It should be any vast estate owned by any one of these celebrities currently starring in HUD's "Put a Face on Homelessness" series of Public Service Announcements. I am refering of course, to William Baldwin, Christie Brinkley, Matthew Broderick, Glenn Close,
Ted Danson, David Dinkins, Roma Downey, Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Kline, Mandy Pantinkin, Martin Sheen, Gillian Anderson and, of course, Macy Gray...who already appears to look homeless anyway.

58 Comments

Email Article