Word: homelessness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...chapel at Immanuel Presbyterian Church was filled to capacity last Saturday afternoon, with mourners moving up to the balcony. Much to the surprise of his family, hundreds of people - from infants to senior citizens - came to honor John Robert McGraham, a homeless man who was brutally murdered on Oct. 9. McGraham, 55, was doused with gasoline and set ablaze. Despite efforts of residents and shopkeepers to extinguish the flames, he died at the scene, on a sidewalk in front of a boarded-up dental office on the corner of West Third and Berendo streets in the mid-Wilshire area...
California has the dubious distinction of ranking second, just behind Florida, in the number of lethal and nonlethal attacks against homeless people last year. It recorded 22, but, says Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, the actual number of attacks is likely even higher because many are never reported. After a huge increase in 2006 - 65%, some of which is attributed to the video Bumfights, in which people who live on the street are pitted against one another - last year still saw an increase of 13%. Street people, says Foscarinis, live "outside, so they...
...attacks on homeless street people are particularly vicious. "They are the most vulnerable people in the country," says Tony Taylor, a research associate at the National Coalition for the Homeless. "Over 1 in 4 attacks that are reported against the homeless end in murder. That's huge compared to one-tenth of a percent of other protected classes," he said, referring to categories of individuals currently protected under federal hate-crime legislation. These crimes typically include bias-motivated violence and intimidation against individuals based on their sexual orientation, race or religion. Being homeless and on the street...
...Center are lobbying members of Congress to pass two bills, sponsored by Texas Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, which would amend two hate-crime acts. The first bill, H.R. 2216, introduced in Congress on May 8, 2007, seeks to amend the Hate Crime Statistics Act to include crimes against the homeless. This would require the FBI to collect data on crimes against the homeless - data sorely needed by homeless advocates - in order to determine if they are hate-motivated attacks. The second bill, H.R. 2217, introduced on the same date, seeks to include the homeless in the list of classes protected...
Foscarinis says the proposed legislation seeks to increase the punishment for hate crimes against the homeless by three offense levels. "At the same time we are lobbying for real solutions, which are housing and social services for homeless people, we have to make sure their lives and dignity are respected," says Foscarinis. "The point of hate-crime legislation to act as a deterrent. It becomes a more serious crime when it's considered a hate crime, and there is a harsher sentence that's imposed. We want to send a message that homeless people's lives are just as valuable...