The recent on-campus assault on a female Sacramento State student by a homeless man has people asking why homeless people are even allowed on campus, especially one who has been physically removed from campus multiple times for ‘interrupting the peace.’

Michael Vo, the accused perpetrator of the recent sexual assault, had been arrested three different times in the month of February before the most recent occurrence. Each arrest resulted in a seven-day banishment from the Sac State campus. I am not trying to lead a crusade against the homeless who frequently roam around our campus, or homeless individuals in general. However, I feel that something needs to change regarding the allowance of vagrants on campus.

Homeless people are human beings, they have the same rights as anyone else and they should be treated as any other human being would want to be treated. Furthermore, many homeless people have substance abuse problems, mental, emotional and/or psychological disorders and have been victims of abuse and neglect by family, friends or society at-large.

Many homeless people are in serious need of rehabilitative treatment, and imprisonment does little, if anything, to correct their deviant behavior (or anyone else’s for that matter). Without treatment, a person may have a distortion or misperception of how other people should be or want to be treated or an overall sense of reality that does not conform to mainstream notions of law, individual rights or what is right and wrong.

Vo obviously lacks any notion of what is and what is not inappropriate, and what is consensual and non-consensual physical/sexual behavior toward someone else. Furthermore, having been arrested three times prior to this most recent incident, Vo also does not understand that being told to leave an area and to discontinue a certain behavior is advice to be heeded.

Regardless of whether the district attorney plans to pursue sexual assault charges against Vo, California Penal Code 626.6 states that, “If the defendant has been previously convicted two or more times of a violation of any offense defined in this chapter (Vo had violated this law three times in less than a week) or Section 415.5, by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not less than 90 days or more than six months, or by both that imprisonment and a fine of not more than $500, and shall not be released on probation, parole, or any other basis until he or she has served not less than 90 days.”

I am not sure what the general student and faculty population thinks should be done, but I am sure some people on campus want to know what will change. Apparently, the Feb. 10 incident is the first reported case of a homeless person assaulting a Sac State student on campus.

Let me be the first to say that I don’t want to start a witch hunt against the homeless people who inhabit the campus grounds. However, if the university continues to allow homeless people to roam our campus without any restriction, there is going to be a heightened fear by students and faculty of another incident similar to (or worse than) the one that took place recently.

I understand that there is always some risk of crime involved whether we are talking about students or homeless people. However, the campus has strict guidelines for student and faculty behavior regarding sexual misconduct in the University Policy Manual.

There is a certain degree of perceived unpredictability surrounding someone who lives on the streets. Not to say that this perception is always correct or right, but I know I would rather have a student I didn’t know stay the night at my place than a homeless person I didn’t know.

I saw this particular homeless person/man numerous times throughout last semester. I had never seen him talk to, gesture toward or interact with anyone on campus. I assumed that he was simply going about his business trying to find some food for the day so he didn’t have to starve.

Up until recently, this was the case.

Should homeless people, who may see our campus as the best (and possibly only) way to find food and shelter, be swept off the campus (and into a possible dire situation) to ensure the safety of students?

I can understand both sides of this equation. And what we are left with is weighing student/faculty safety against the rights of homeless people who use our campus to live and subsist. We have what was a harmless situation turn into something more serious. Furthermore, I don’t want to wait until something worse than sexual fondling occurs to say, “OK, now we need to do something.”

Scott Allen can be reached at [email protected]