‘1/100 Strangers Project – Steve’
courtesy of ‘Kasia Swierczek’
City Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) introduced a bill today that would include the homeless in DC’s hate crimes law. As broad as DC’s bias crimes law is, I’m actually surprised the homeless aren’t already protected by it. Since the strongest reason for hate crimes laws is to deter crimes that particularly terrify an entire class of people in the community, it seems like a no-brainer to add protection for a group of people who already have an uneasy relationship with the police and other members of the community, and who frequently are homeless because of issues that would also prevent them from reliably reporting a crime or identifying an assailant.