While people experiencing homelessness are afforded the same rights as other citizens of the United States, including the right to family, the right to be protected from domestic and sexual violence, the right to an education, the right to be free from hunger, the right to vote, and the right to receive mail, they still can have their rights violated as a result of their housing situation.

If I told you someone was forced to sleep on a cold, concrete slab; kicked and humiliated; exposed to the elements; threatened by law enforcement; attacked by dogs; didn’t know when they would get their next meal; and generally were deprived of their basic human dignity, would you be able to say whether I was talking about an abused prisoner, or a person living on the streets of America?

Human rights law is especially powerful, because it starts from the premise that all human beings have basic rights. It recognizes that everyone has a right to the basics of human life: adequate housing, food, health care, work. It recognizes that everyone has the right to basic human dignity. Homelessness itself violates these fundamental rights—criminalizing it is even worse.

2013 marked the 50th anniversary of the landmark right to counsel case, Gideon v. Wainwright, which held that defendants facing serious criminal charges have a constitutional right to counsel at state expense if they cannot afford one. Since that decision, the Supreme Court extended the right to juveniles and expanded it to incorporate misdemeanor offenses that are punishable by incarceration. But the promise of Gideon remains unfulfilled.