Business Interests Hold Sway on Cities’ Homeless Policies

(October 15) – As U.S. cities struggle to address rising homelessness, they increasingly are turning to policies pushed by commercial-property owners that ban people from sitting or sleeping on sidewalks and begging for money. Business improvement districts—groups of commercial property owners who pool their resources to revitalize their neighborhoods—have worked with some city councils to create and help enforce new laws targeting public conduct in busy commercial districts. In Denver, Berkeley, Calif., and Portland, Ore., for example, BIDs have campaigned to prohibit people from sitting or lying in public rights of way, and even sued to reverse policies that encouraged tent cities and homeless camps.