A California state lawmaker has introduced the Right to Rest Act, aimed at ending criminalization of the homeless — bringing to four the number of states considering similar proposals — rights advocates said Monday.

"Whether it is our Right to Rest Act or other versions that achieve the same goal of decriminalizing poor and homeless community members existence in public spaces, doesn't matter," Paul Boden, the director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, told Al Jazeera in an emailed statement. "What matters is we all work together and support each other in ending racist and classist policing programs once and for all."...

California’s Right to Rest Act would give homeless people the right to use public space without discrimination. It also describes the right to rest in public, to protect oneself from the elements in public, to eat in public and to occupy a legally parked car as "basic human and civil rights," according to the text of the Senate bill....

Laws targeting the homeless for carrying out life-sustaining activities such as standing, sitting, resting or sleeping in public places — as well as begging and food sharing — have risen sharply in California in recent years, a report by the University of California at Berkeley Law School said.