Cities criminalizing poverty

Jessica Jones, NPR - In North Carolina, a fight is brewing over the homeless in the capital city of Raleigh. Elected leaders have asked charitable and religious groups to stop their long-standing tradition of feeding the homeless in a downtown park on weekends.

But advocates for the poor say the city is trying to push the homeless out of a neighborhood that business leaders want to spruce up.

Police also banned nearly two dozen other groups who've fed homeless people in the park for years. Candace Jeffries, who relies on those weekend meals to survive, says she knows what's going on.

"I think the reason why they doin' it 'cause they don't want us in the park at all — nobody, like everybody just disappeared," the 21-year-old says.

Raleigh isn't the only city seeking to move its homeless population to a less prominent location. In recent years, municipalities from Seattle to Tampa have cracked down on the homeless and groups that help them.

Nationally, there is an increase in cities responding to visible poverty including homelessness by criminalizing it.

Maria Foscarinis heads the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, an organization that seeks to end homelessness. She says many cities want to revitalize downtown areas.

"And they feel like having homeless people, having visibly poor people in those downtown areas detracts from those efforts," she says.

There's been a dramatic increase in the number of homeless and hungry people since the recession, Foscarinis says. And tight state budgets haven't helped solve the problem. That's true in Columbia, S.C., where councilman Cameron Runyan says the number of homeless people in the county has increased by 42 percent in two years. He says their presence on his city's main street hurts local merchants.