Editorial: Again, city treads on homeless

Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2003 | 9 a.m.

A week ago today the city of Las Vegas descended to a new low in pursuing its policy of bullying homeless people. Reports of shopping carts being left near a handicapped access ramp at the Salvation Army were the only justification the city's Neighborhood Services Department needed for another of its notorious sweeps. Department staffers, bolstered by Metro Police officers, arrived unannounced at 8 a.m. and confiscated the offending carts -- as well as all of the personal possessions in them.

There was no attempt to reconcile the belongings with the approximately 20 owners. Just the opposite, in fact, took place. As homeless people arrived to retrieve their items -- many were inside the Salvation Army or nearby -- they were told to stand back. All of their possessions were dumped into a city truck and hauled off. Among the items lost were medical records, work uniforms, family photos, identification cards, birth certificates, Social Security cards and medications.

We understand that shopping carts are stolen property. But there is a way of rounding them up without violating the U.S. Constitution, whose Fourth, Fifth and 14th Amendments protect individuals from wrongful seizures. The callousness displayed by the city in seizing and destroying all of the worldly possessions of destitute people was sickening.

In May the city of Pittsburgh was sued by the American Civil Liberties Union for confiscating and destroying the property of homeless people during sweeps of their encampments. The suit resulted in the city agreeing to follow a long list of procedures to protect the property of homeless people. The ACLU of Nevada is working with its national counterparts to see what can be done here.

The city of Las Vegas, on its own, however, should recognize how blatantly it disregarded the property rights of those 20 homeless people. It should adopt a policy to ensure that such violations never happen again under any circumstances. Homeless people should receive advance notice of any planned sweeps. If innocuous property (health and safety hazards could be exceptions), for some reason, has to be confiscated, it should be carefully bagged and tagged and the owners should be given instructions on where, when and how they can retrieve it. Failure to adopt such a policy, in our view, will reflect badly on every member of the City Council.