On Saturday evening, a homeless man was beaten to death outside of a Burger King in Los Angeles.
A fight started between the victim, who was about 30 years old and black, and two other homeless men, who are white and have not been identified, but who police say don’t appear to have a relation to the victim. The victim was taken to a hospital after police arrived at the scene and later died.
The incident is not being investigated as a hate crime and the homeless aren’t considered a protected class under California hate crime laws. But the state has seen a recent spate of violence against this population. In January, three men poured lighter fluid on a sleeping homeless man in Ventura Beach and lit him and his belongings on fire. Earlier this month, a group of five teenage boys allegedly attacked a homeless man in Ventura with a knife and a bat in a parking garage. Both of those victims are expected to survive. But the victim of another attack in November in San Francisco wasn’t as lucky: a 67-year-old disabled homeless man was beaten to death in an alley by three men.
California’s violence is unfortunately common across the country, much of it perpetrated by random strangers. There were at least 109 violent attacks against the homeless committed by non-homeless people in 2013, which are all thought to be motivated by bias against them just for being homeless, 18 of which were fatal. The attacks rose 24 percent over 2012, and there have been nearly 1,500 of them over the last 15 years, resulting in 375 deaths.
The FBI doesn’t recognize homelessness as a protected hate crime class, but the degree of violence against the homeless has prompted some places to change their own rules. Albequrque, New Mexico was rocked last summer by a fatal attack on two homeless people perpetrated by a group of three teenagers who admitted to using bricks, a metal pole, and sticks. The victims, Allison Gorman and Kee Thompson, were so badly beaten they couldn’t be immediately identified. The teens admitted to similar attacks on at least 50 other homeless people over a year. After state Sen. Bill O’Neill (D) realized that it wouldn’t be considered a hate crime, he introduced a bill that would change the state’s statute to include them. Seven other states already classify biased attacks on the homeless as hate crimes.
If violent attacks on the homeless were considered a hate crime nationally, they would constitute the largest source of such crimes. There were four fatal hate crime attacks on all protected groups in 2011, compared to 32 murdered homeless people.
Homelessness is extremely dangerous, and not just because of random acts of violence. Just sleeping outside in moderately cold weather claims many homeless people’s lives. An estimated 2,000 people died living on the streets last year. Life expectancy for the homeless population is 15 years shorter than for the general population.
Housing the homeless would therefore shield them from many of these life-threatening conditions. It would also be cheaper than leaving them outside to face health problems and rely on emergency rooms, as different cities and states are starting to realize.