the Courts The Law and the Homeless - Homeless Court

One solution to the increasing backlog of court cases involving petty offenses committed by the homeless is the Homeless Court Program, founded in 1996 by Steven R. Binder, Deputy Public Defender for San Diego County. The program is now a model for other jurisdictions. In a typical program, a courtroom is set up in a shelter or in a Health Care for the Homeless office, and defendants charged with criminal misdemeanor warrants are tried in the presence of a judge, a clerk, a public defender, and a prosecutor who are familiar with the problems of the homeless. The guiding principle is rehabilitation, not punishment. According to Justin Graf of the American Bar Association, in an online review of Binder's The Homeless Court Program: Taking the Court to the Streets (Washington, DC: American Bar Association Commission on Homelessness and Poverty, 2002):

The key players involved in the program realize that outstanding criminal warrants often preclude homeless people from accessing vital services such as employment, housing, public benefits, and treatment for mental health and/or substance abuse problems. As such, the court seeks to address the legal problems of the homeless participants as well as linking them with appropriate services and treatment programs.