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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless.

Inaccurate and sensationalist. Earlier in the same paragraph:

It turned out that Mr. Szekely, who is an ordained minister and does not drink, do drugs or curse in front of ladies, did indeed have a warrant - for not appearing in court to face a charge of "criminal trespassing"

He wasn't arrested for being homeless; he was arrested for an outstanding warrant.

You may or may not be arrested, charged, or convicted for other crimes, but one thing's for sure: law enforcement seems to take it personally when you don't appear. Anyone with an outstanding warrant risks immediate arrest at any time. The reasonableness of the original charge doesn't matter.

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And what was the warrant for? Was it not for sleeping on the sidewalk, i.e. being homeless?

No, it was for not appearing in court.

Yea, but on a charge of trespassing which was possibly related to his being homeless and looking for food or something.

If he was homeless, how was he supposed to get a letter telling him to show up in court at all?

Yeah he got arrested for being homeless.

What? Homeless people can't get served anymore?

What do you suggest the police do? Just forget about expecting homeless people to make their court dates? Or perhaps homeless people can be exempt from certain types of crimes? Maybe we should just immediately throw them in jail, because there not going to be able to come back to court -- they're homeless.

When you're charged, you know there will be a court date, whether you have an address or not. It's your responsibility to show up for it, homeless or not. Simply because you don't get your mail doesn't mean that somehow society is punishing you for being homeless -- lots of people miss court dates and end up in jail for it.

Come on guys, use some critical thinking skills here. [Now I got sucked into this. Geesh]

Simply because you don't get your mail doesn't mean that somehow society is punishing you for being homeless -- lots of people miss court dates and end up in jail for it.

Anatole France: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

There is no natural law passed down from the heavens that decrees that you can later be arrested and jailed for not responding to a court summons in a timely fashion, regardless of circumstance, and regardless of the severity of the original charge. Just because it's the way it is doesn't mean that it is necessarily fair, just, or reasonable.

Come on guys, use some critical thinking skills here.

Not commenting on the rest of your post, using my critical thinking, it would seem odd at best to expect people without a home, without an address, to be able to read or respond to mail. And court-dates are rarely if ever decided at the time of apprehension.

If your primary goal is merely to stay alive, I think you will find your priorities somewhat different from the ones had by the rest of society.

But I can see this going on and on. You have your point of view, I have mine. We're obviously not going to agree, so let's leave it at that.

I'm willing to let it go, with one caveat: getting, reading, and responding to mail is a different problem from failing to appear in court. We can solve the first one, but conflating the two doesn't help any.

It sounds like there is an opportunity for people to help homeless folks by providing them with post office boxes and voice mail. Seems like I read that a lot of charities are already doing that? Wouldn't that be a cool startup idea? (if you could find a way to monetize it)

To me, this conversation has the same problem that homelessness itself has (and I speak from experience). You can either look at everything like an obstacle or like an opportunity.

The court date was likely written on the ticket the police officer handed him. No letter involved.

They don't say. It could be he was breaking into houses. Speculating isn't going to be productive.

Wrong. They do say. It was, in fact, for sleeping on a sidewalk. Did you even read the article?

The very fact that he had a "criminal tresspassing" charge in the first place — for sleeping on a public sidewalk, as you neglect to mention — reinforces the thesis of this piece.

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