Long before his bludgeoned body was found in a DuPage County Forest Preserve, John Conrad had become almost anonymous. Since he was homeless, nearly everyone had forgotten that he had flown remote-controlled planes as a child in that same preserve and entertained dreams of becoming a pilot.
That dehumanization is contributing to a rise in violent crimes against the homeless, two national homeless-prevention groups announced in a report released Tuesday. The crimes have climbed since one of those groups began tracking the trend in 1999.
"It's a crisis that has grown and not been addressed at any level of government," said Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, a Washington, D.C.-based group that collaborated this year with the National Coalition for the Homeless in preparing the report. "This leaves people who are homeless extremely vulnerable."
"Hate, Violence and Death on Main Street U.S.A.," the 111-page report, found that the number of attacks against the homeless rose last year to 160, up from 142 the year before. The number of fatal attacks also rose, to 28 deaths from 20 in 2006, the report states.
