An Academic Analyses of Homelessness

Jeremy Waldron, Homelessness and the Issue of Freedom, 39 UCLA L. REV. 295(1991)

Waldron explores the relation between the rules of public and privateproperty, and the underlying freedom, or lack thereof, of homelessness.This is a moral philosophical inquiry that relates something we allvalue, freedom, with something many of us would choose to ignore: poorpeople performing basic human functions, which many of us do in a privateplace on private property, in a public place on public property.

The author describes the plight of homelessness as “no place governed bya private property rule where he is allowed to be whenever he chooses, noplace governed by a private property rule from which he may not at anytime be excluded as a result of someone else’s say-so.” Id. at 299.

In alibertarian paradise where all land would be held in private propertythere could be literally nowhere a homeless person is allowed to be.Since we live in such a society with some public, common property it isthese places – streets, parks, under bridges – where homeless people canlegally be. Yet there is increasing regulation that aim to restrict theactivities that can be performed in public places.

Waldron points out that a person who is not allowed to being a place isunfree to be there and thus a person who is not free to be in any placeis not free to do anything. “Such a person is comprehensively unfree.”Id. at 302. Thus the freedom of a homeless person depends on commonproperty unlike someone who does have a home. This condition requires agreat deal of agency since the mundane life tasks we with homes take forgranted require much resourcefulness to achieve in public. Waldron thenasks, since we as a society are willing to tolerate an economic system inwhich large numbers of people are homeless, are we then wiling to allowhomeless to act as free agents, looking after their own needs in publicplaces? The answer to this question is increasingly, “no.”

Whether a person is free to sleep or wash we must ask whether there areany prohibitions of place that apply to actions of this type. Thus ifsleeping is prohibited in public places, then sleeping is comprehensivelyprohibited to the homeless. Waldron points out some traits of theseprohibitions of place that limit behavior per se but have a specific typeof person in mind: People who know they have some place where they arepermitted to sleep, which allows them to infer a certain public place isnot a place for sleeping. People who do not want to be confronted withthe sight of the homeless are willing to deprive homeless people theopportunity to sleep to protect themselves from this discomfort.

How serious are anti-homeless laws as a prohibition on freedom? Theyclose off actions basic to the sustenance of a decent or healthy lifethat form a precondition for the kind of autonomous life celebrated andaffirmed by the Bill of Rights. This lack of liberty makes it harder forhomeless people to do the things that may get them a job to affordhousing. The irony of anti-homeless laws is that it makes it moredifficult for homeless people to improve the condition that is sooffensive.

Waldron characterizes out system of property as rules that providefreedom for some by imposing restrictions on other. Where a certainclass of people bear all of the restrictions and none of the benefitsthen property functions as nothing but a way of limiting their freedom. He urges readers to see homelessness as issue of freedom where people areagents who can satisfy their own basic needs.

Erin Darling