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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Protesters: TN Can’t Arrest its Way Out of the Homeless Problem

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Friday, February 22, 2008   

Memphis, TN – Homeless Tennesseans who have been living in downtown Memphis may soon be arrested for it. The Center City Commission today is looking at hiring a private armed police force to crack down on what the Commission calls the "nuisance" of homeless people, who exhibit behavior such as sleeping in public places.

One reason put forth for the proposed action is that seeing homeless people isn't good for business. The proposal is being protested by Tennessee groups that work with people in poverty.

Jacob Flowers with the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center says the police money would be better spent on programs to address why people are homeless in the first place.

"People are on the street, many times, because they need to go into alcohol and drug rehabilitation services, they need mental health treatment or they just need affordable housing."

The Commission is looking at spending a $250,000 annually on the private police force, which they say also will increase downtown safety.

Flowers says the Center City Commission plan isn't novel. He says other big cities, such as Los Angeles, have tried to use the same approach of "criminalizing" homelessness.

"There's a disturbing national trend of urban areas criminalizing poverty rather than looking to solve the root causes of why we have people living in public spaces."




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