Hate crimes against #homeless people. María J. Aldanas

1. Hate Crimes against homeless
people
Maria J. Aldanas
Policy Officer
FEANTSA

2. Introduction
• It is absolutely unacceptable that in a modern and
civilized society there are still homeless people.
• The reality of homeless people remains invisible and
unknown making it easier to perpetuate the stigma,
the stereotypes and the prejudice.
• Sometimes stigmatization is accompanied by attitudes
of intolerance, which are the breeding ground for hate
crimes. These crimes are the violent manifestation of
a socially accepted prejudice.
• Homelessness can be ended. Being poor is not an
identity*, on the contrary, it’s a temporary situation

3. Hate crimes
• The framing of violence against homeless people
as hate crime is more advanced in the US.
• In the EU it is not always conceptualised as “hate
crime”: homelessness is not understood as a
grounds for discrimination like race, disability,
gender etc.
• Poor people / homeless people are not
necessarily considered a social group.
• However it’s conceptualized, violence against
homeless people because of prejudice is a reality.

4. Criminalisation of homeless people
• Measures penalising the use of public space that
affect homeless people (ordinances, by-laws) .
Discrimination on the basis of economic and
social status:
– These measures can create an atmosphere in which it
is acceptable to target homeless people.
– They can generate power dynamics leading to
harassment (by police officers, for example).
• Mean Streets, report on criminalisation (2013)
• Campaign Homeless Bill of Rights: a rights
approach to homelessness (2016)

5. Monitoring Europe
• Under-reporting: victims do not report
aggressions
• Under-recording: most EU MS do not collect this
data
• Most advanced UK. Crisis report :
http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/document_lib
rary/research/livinginfear_full.pdf
• OSCE annual report : http://hatecrime.osce.org/
– 2015: info from 41 countries.
– Spain only country with data on hate crimes against
homeless people

6. Monitoring: Spain
• Observatory Hatento in Spain, led by Feantsa
member RAIS Foundation. http://hatento.org/
– One of the first research focussing on hate crimes
against homeless people
– having rigorous and reliable data, allows for good
interlocution with governments
• SOS Racismo:
– not their main focus, but collect data: specific on
homeless migrants (both variables)

7. EU Policy
• European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)
http://fra.europa.eu/en/theme/hate-crime
– Don’t pay much attention to crimes against poor people
• The EU has a broad set of measures to combat different forms and
manifestations of racism and xenophobia:
http://ec.europa.eu/justice/fundamental-rights/racism-
xenophobia/index_en.htm
• EU High Level Group on combating racism, xenophobia and other
forms of intolerance*:
– Exchange and dissemination of best practices and concrete
discussions on how to better prevent and combat hate crime
and hate speech.
– Assist the Commission in the preparation of legislative proposals
and policy initiatives

8. Proposals for Action
• Integrated Policies (Preventative)
– Governments need to integrate strategies to combat
hate crime into education, law-enforcement and
social policies
– Need for education at different levels: young people,
police, local governments, etc.
• Legislation:
– Consideration of violence against poor people as one
of the causes of discrimination in European legislation
– Being poor/homeless: aggravating factor in national
pieces of legislation