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Supportive housing costs $31 a day,http://www.katalogportali.com/sidebar.php?Juventus-Pelipaidat-2014-2015, or $11,http://auramodels.co.uk/wp-rdf.php?mens-replica-fake-swiss-watches-patek-philippe-golden-bridge-automatic-limited-edition-watch,315 a year, for each person housed. The same amount of money that housed Julie in jail for four days would have put a roof over her head for 45 days through supportive housing.
In reality, there is no one Julie Lincoln. She’s a composite of the dozens of clients charged with trespassing that I’ve represented as a criminal defense attorney over the past two years. Ten thousand people become homeless each year in Sonoma County, four times the national average. There are 4,000 homeless people in Sonoma County on any given day.
It’s time to get smart and start cost-effectively providing for the homeless instead of prosecuting them for the county’s failures.
Jason Tauches is a criminal defense attorney who lives and works in Santa Rosa. Prev | 2 Petaluma police recently arrested Julie Lincoln, (a pseudonym), for illegal camping,http://www.rockpocketgames.com/phpinfo.php?athletic-bilbao-c-606_616.html, citing her for trespassing. Julie is 52,http://www.producteursdemaregion.com/http.php?Prix-Juventus-Maillots-Femme-2015-Domicile-chine.html, with long brown hair that she keeps in a pony tail. She tries to dress nicely, or as nicely as possible considering the clothes available. They tend to hang loosely on her gaunt 5-foot-8-inch frame. Julie has been homeless for five years, ever since she lost her job, then her house and then her car in the economic downturn. Undiagnosed bipolar disorder keeps her from holding a job, and she took to self-medicating with meth for a while, but if you asked her now she’d say she’s been clean for two years.
She’s applied for services at the local homeless shelters. The local shelters are at capacity, however,http://verdensbedstenogensinde.dk/wp-rss.php?udenlandsk_fodbold/, and only able to shelter 20 percent of Sonoma County’s homeless. So, Julie has been “camping” along the railroad tracks with a few friends, trying to make a comfortable place for herself to stay warm when the temperature goes down to the low 40s at night. Usually when she wakes up, she heads to the Mary Isaak Center to get lunch and maybe take a shower.
But this one particular morning was different. The Petaluma police came through and told her and her friends that they have to clean up the camp and move out. They cited her and gave her a brochure telling her about the homeless services she already knows about, services that are already overburdened.
So she cleaned up her camp and left the tracks with nowhere to go except maybe along the river or further into woods somewhere off the tracks.
At her court date, Julie is charged with trespassing and given an offer of 30 days in jail. Her public defender tells her that the maximum sentence for trespassing is 180 days in jail and recommends she fight the charges.
But Julie is tired. Tired from being homeless and the thought of having to find money for bus fare to come back to court, of walking from her camp to the bus and from the bus to the courthouse. She doesn’t know what to do, so they set another court date for settlement. She misses her court date and is picked up on a warrant on a Saturday. She spends four days in jail, until she’s back in court where she pleads to the charges for credit for time served and is let out of jail.
She goes back to Petaluma to find her camp gone,http://endobiz.co.uk/wp-searches.php?Replica-seamaster-watches-c-1_6.html, her belongings stolen and her friends nowhere to be found. At the Mary Isaak Center,https://www.mywebdoctor.co.uk/wp-plugins.php?japanese-replicas/panerai.html, she hears her friends are camping out at the Petaluma River in a place the police don’t know about yet. After getting a free sandwich, she heads out to make the 3-mile walk to try to find them.
Along for the ride on Julie’s ordeal is the Sonoma County taxpayer. Taxpayers pay for the cost of the Petaluma police officers who issued Julie the citation. They paid for the judge used to arraign and convict Julie, the judge’s clerk and judicial assistant and the bailiffs in court those days.
They paid for the public defender who represented Julie and for the district attorney who pressed charges against her. Taxpayers paid,http://www.bonus-invest.no/postinfo.asp?Brasil-Fotballtr%25C3%25B8ye-Dame-VM-2014-Ronaldinho-10-1331, according The Press Democrat,http://www.annphysiocare.com/wp-walker.php?Maillots-Everton-2015-MCGEADY-exterieur-en-soldes.html, $1,400 for her four-day stay in jail.
If Julie had decided to take her case to trial,http://www.bikelane.com.au/wp-xml.php?internationalteams/psv-eindhoven-football-shirts/, they would have paid for the judge’s time and the district attorney’s time. They would have paid for the court reporter, the court clerk and the judicial assistant. All of this expense in time and money was avoidable.
Supportive housing costs $31 a day, or $11,315 a year, for each person housed. The same amount of money that housed Julie in jail for four days would have put a roof over her head for 45 days through supportive housing.
In reality,http://www.vincinibottier.com/wp-db.php?CBS_Houston_Texans_Jerseys, there is no one Julie Lincoln. She’s a composite of the dozens of clients charged with trespassing that I’ve represented as a criminal defense attorney over the past two years. Ten thousand people become homeless each year in Sonoma County,http://www.penomenu.nl/wp-xml.php?nike-oranje-trainingsjack/, four times the national average. There are 4,000 homeless people in Sonoma County on any given day.
It’s time to get smart and start cost-effectively providing for the homeless instead of prosecuting them for the county’s failures.
Jason Tauches is a criminal defense attorney who lives and works in Santa Rosa. |相关的主题文章：


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