It's getting colder, so fuck the homeless

Chicagoist alerts me to some new signs that have gone up in a few CTA stations around town. Apparently, the CTA is trying to crack down on what they call "Continuous Riders." If you have a brain, you know that "Continuous Riders" means "homeless people."

And Mike Doyle of Chicago Carless contacted the CTA, which gave him some standard evasive answers and flatly denied that the new signs are directed at targeting the city's homeless.

The real question here is: what's the penalty? Let's say that someone is "caught" by CTA personnel about to enter the train going to opposite direction, without exiting and re-entering. What then? Do they get arrested? Fined? Both? The Chicago Police already have a slew of regulations to help fight against the city's homeless, and give them a way to boot them off the CTA. Which, believe me, they use on a regular basis. The CTA ordinance (pdf) contains a provision that prohibits sleeping or dozing "where such activity may be hazardous to such person or others or where such activity may interfere with the operation of the CTA's transit system." So, it's against the law to sleep on the train? It's news to me, considering that the summer I worked downtown I fell asleep on the train basically every day both to and from work. And even missed my stop a few times, which means I have also committed the DREADFUL ACT of getting off and getting on another train going in the opposite direction without paying an additional fare.

And if you look in that PDF, it doesn't say anything that would amount to a prohibition on so-called "continuous riding."

I find this all despicable. I know people for whom the only way they managed not to freeze to death was by riding the CTA up and down the length of the City of Chicago all night long. What's the harm? What's the problem with having someone just sitting on a train? Shall we try to throw homeless people off the train when they're just riding from point A to point B, rather than engaging in "continuous riding," because we don't like the way they look or smell, or they make us uncomfortable?

If the city is concerned about the city's homeless riding on the trains all night, perhaps they should fund additional shelters instead of spending money on enforcement of a law that is unfair, cruel, and almost certain to be disproportionately applied.

UPDATE: Wow, I really didn't know that the site was was read by so many anti-homeless. I said that thing about funding additional homeless shelters because, well, there really is a shelter deficit in this city. But even if there wasn't, like someone said above, there are often people who can't stand the shelters because of their onerous rules. Plus, they can be awful. I have a former client who described his experience in a shelter as "fighting off rats."

And so there are always going to be people who don't have anywhere to go for the night. Even if there are more shelters. Even if those shelters change their rules or become less sanctimonious. And I, personally, am ok with those small number of people riding the CTA to keep warm.

Commenter kid bitzer said "like some of the earlier commenters, i'm inclined to think that the el should be for getting from place to place, not for sheltering from the cold." Which sounds like a reasonable position. But you can't enforce this rule in a reasonable way unless you're only using it as a rule against homeless people. What about a homeless person who rides the el from beginning to end of the line, not to get from place to place, but just for shelter from the cold? No "continuous riding," just rides from one end to the other. Perhaps he gets off, has a cup of coffee, and get back on twenty minutes later going the other way. Should that be disallowed? It's not using the el for its intended purpose.

After all, the el is not to be used except for "getting from place to place." I personally like my right to use the CTA as I please, as long as I am a paying customer, and not interfering with other passengers or the train's operation. As a middle-class professional person, I have slept on the train, gotten off and gone the other way, and rode the brown line downtown and back one afternoon because it's a beautiful trip and I was bored. And no one bats an eyelash.

Let's just all admit to what is being said here, in coded terms: you don't want homeless people on the train. And I say, have some goddamned compassion for your fellow human being.