The police are now fining homeless folks for any arbitrary offense they can think of, and city councils across the country are making it illegal to sleep in public. They've gone so far as to make it illegal to camp, or even sit or lay down in certain public areas. Worst of all, many cities are making it illegal, or prohibitively expensive to give food to the homeless. According to an interview from The Independent, with a former police chief involved in a charity dedicated to feeding the poor:
The homeless are an embarrassment for the town, said Arnold Abbott, a 90-year-old former police chief from Pennsylvania and director of Love Thy Neighbor, an organization that has been feeding homeless here for over 20 years. Five times the city has tried and failed in court to stop him serving meals each Wednesday on the beach beneath the tourist strip.
The town, he said, really wants the homeless to go away. "They would like to put them in a bus and send them to Miami or Palm Beach. It's very close to ethnic cleansing. But they are not going to succeed."
Comment: Additional examples of the ongoing discrimination against America's homeless: