> If it is truly de-jure illegal to be poor now, you'd be able to point at a law on the books which says that.

Boise recently had to deal with this.

Passed a law that said it was illegal to sleep on the streets or public property if a shelter bed was available.

Problem? No shelter beds were generally available but two religious shelters said they were "always available", even when they had no actual beds. Ergo, police made arrests because the shelters were available, even if, factually, there wasn't. That the shelters SAID there were was enough for the police to arrest.

Adding to the problem was both of those shelters required both attendance AND participation in multiple religious ceremonies per day as a requisite of you being there, even if there did happen to be a bed.

So now you had a situation where the police were able to arrest homeless for refusing to go to these shelters, which may not have beds available, and that forced religious participation to be there.

That was a law that made it onto the books, until it was rightfully challenged. But the fact it made it to legislation in the first place is problematic.