Get Herald RSSSo former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has officially entered the presidential race. Upon hearing his name, many think of "America's Mayor" in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. Others may conjure up memories of the reduced crime rate, or of blatant First Amendment violations. But there is one insidious phrase which is most commonly used of Giuliani's time in office, and it is that aspect I wish to discuss here.
The catchphrase is "clean up." "Oh, he really cleaned up the city," people rave. Let us parse that innocuous little term a bit. To clean something up is to rid it of filth, dirt and other such undesirables. What disgusting scourge did Giuliani oust from New York City? Homeless people. At first blush, this may seem desirable. But Giuliani did not rid us of the plagues of homelessness, hopelessness and abject poverty. Instead, he rid us of having to see the people suffering from such afflictions. He encouraged the arrests and relocation of the homeless on petty charges, while simultaneously and dramatically cutting funding and staffing for programs intended to ameliorate their condition.
By 2000, it ought to be noted - after seven years of Giuliani's tender care - the homelessness rate in New York was higher than it had been since the economic recession in 1989. Though the homeless had largely disappeared from sight due to street sweeps, their number had steadily increased due to Giuliani's policies. According to the Village Voice, he consistently "cut or stymied funding for homeless services, welfare, food stamps, food pantries, hospitals, health care and prescription-drug programs, AIDS services, low-income housing, day care, neighborhood parks, after-school and recreation programs, seniors' programs, small museums, small cultural and arts programs, libraries and legal services for the poor." He reduced capital spending on affordable housing by over 40 percent, cut creation of apartments for homeless families by 75 percent, downsized the staff of the Department of Homeless Services by half and transferred the vast majority of public homeless shelters into private hands.
So how did Giuliani deal with the problem that he was exacerbating? He chose to do so by essentially criminalizing homelessness. He reinterpreted a sanitation department regulation banning the abandoning of cars and the like on city streets to apply to people living in cardboard boxes - other laws, such as those prohibiting camping in parks without a permit, were applied towards the same goal. Giuliani charged street patrols with paying "special attention" to such terrors as "prostitution, homeless people, noise complaints, panhandling, public drinking, squeegee men and graffiti" - and ordered the arrest of any homeless person who refused to be placed in a shelter on such specious charges as disorderly conduct, trespassing or impeding the flow of pedestrian traffic. He even attempted to pass legislation that would put children in foster care if their parents did not fulfill certain "workfare" requirements.
Giuliani clearly never stopped to consider why someone would refuse to be "helped" by being put into a shelter - for it is not simple recalcitrance. Homeless shelters are often dirty, crowded and dangerous. Those who seek a haven there face the prospect of battery, robbery, rape and infection within their walls; shelters also teem with the mentally ill, due to the dismantling of social and medical services meant to help them. Little wonder, then, that many prefer the dubious safety of the streets to such an atmosphere. Giuliani underscores his utter lack of comprehension and empathy by public remarks like this one, reported in the New York Times, "Streets do not exist in civilized societies for the purpose of people sleeping there … Bedrooms are for sleeping." The right to sleep on the street, he declares, "doesn't exist anywhere. The founding fathers never put that in the Constitution." The workings of his mind are simply unfathomable. Does he honestly believe that anyone wants to sleep on the streets in sub-zero weather, at the mercy of the elements, without such basic amenities as a toilet or washbasin, their desperation and humiliation exposed to every passerby? The question is not of the "right to sleep on the street" but rather of the responsibility of the government to provide a safety net, a viable alternative to that last resort - a duty at which the Giuliani administration has patently and deliberately failed.
Giuliani did not care about the misery of the homeless - only the distaste of the affluent. As a city official explained to the New York Times, "I think most citizens of the city, if they are walking in the park and they see some unknown figure sleeping in a cardboard box, they don't feel very secure." Well-to-do people, Giuliani's actions boldly declare, should not have to deal with unsolicited people trying to wash their windshields or sell them wilted roses at traffic lights. They should not have to step over the bodies of their less fortunate brethren sprawled sleeping in stations or huddled shivering on metal subway grates. They should not have to be panhandled daily and forced to look into the scruffy face of the Other. It's simply uncivilized.
I'm not trying to be sanctimonious here. It is uncomfortable. It makes me feel awkward and guilty and conflicted and helpless. But the solution is not arresting people for loitering who literally have nowhere to go, or prodding them awake with batons and demanding that they "move along." Silly as metaphorical battles with abstractions sound, surely a "War on Homelessness" is better than a "War on Homeless People."
Now, homelessness may not be "your cause." But even if you are not passionate about this issue for its own sake, some vital insights into Giuliani's character can be gleaned by the examination of his behavior. Presented with a social problem, he responded by valiantly protecting the sensibilities of the privileged by persecuting and prosecuting the powerless. He kicked people who were down and then arrested them for having the gall to lie there winded - and all this in the name of "quality-of-life improvements." I shudder to think of what he would do if we voters allow him the opportunity to "clean up" America.
Karla Bertrand '09 objects to "cleaning up" her room on moral grounds.
is a member of the 
