Green Party Platform:
Homelessness
Homeless people have the right to full acknowledgment of their human dignity and a voice in the decisions that affect them. Homelessness reflects an area of total failure in our society.
Today homeless people are hounded, threatened and often can not obtain badly needed services. Though affordable housing could help alleviate the problem of homelessness, the homeless have needs that go beyond housing.
The Green Party calls for measures to help the homeless:
- Expand community-based services for the homeless and make them more readily available.
- Repeal all laws that criminalize any facet of homelessness or helping the homeless.
- Abolish anti-sleeping laws, especially in areas which don't have adequate open space, shelter and sleeping areas for the homeless.
- Strictly enforce all the laws that are designed to provide for the homeless--such as the laws that require the opening of National Guard armories to the homeless during inclement weather.
- Allow the homeless to take part in decisions about long- and short-term solutions to their situation.
- Strengthen and increase funding of mental health and drug rehabilitation systems.