It's too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when its almost illegal to be poor. You wont be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, youre well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the 80s and 90s. If youre lying on a sidewalk, whether youre homeless or a millionaire, youre in violation of the ordinance, a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole Frances immortal observation that ``the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.''
