Tens of thousands of Americans are homeless. They live either in shelters or on the streets. In cities, they sleep on park benches, sit on sidewalks, or beg for change in front of stores.

Some citizens and business owners would like to control such behaviors. They say shoppers feel intimidated by the clusters of panhandlers who gather near popular stores and restaurants to beg. Shop owners believe their businesses suffer as a result of such loitering.

In response, large cities across America are considering or have already passed civility ordinances. These laws restrict where panhandling can occur, whether people can rummage through garbage, and what hours people can sit or sleep on downtown sidewalks.

"When people are laying in front of your store and they're sleeping ... it scares away the clients," says San Francisco police officer Bud Clinton, who regularly deals with his city's homeless population. "People are bringing their children. Children see some of the people out here who are intoxicated, and they're yelling and cursing ... It's not good for business. It scares the children."

Homeless rights activists call civility ordinances attacks on the constitutional rights of the homeless. They say such laws unfairly punish the homeless because they often do not have anyplace to go during the day, making it almost impossible for them to avoid violating the law.

"[The police] tell us to get off the streets, and then when we go into the park, we get harassed there, too," says a homeless San Francisco man who goes by the name of 2bit. "We get tickets galore, and then we can't afford to pay them. And then they go to warrants [for arrest]. Then they bring us to jail. And they know we can't afford to pay them."

"It's very important to remember that being poor is not a crime," Michael Skadden, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, recently told the Houston Chronicle newspaper.

Still, police insist that they treat the homeless with the proper respect. They say it is only when the homeless become public nuisances through aggressive begging or public drunkeness that they are brought to the police station.

"It's not easy to be homeless," says single mother Anna Morrow, who found herself homeless shortly after being downsized from a large corporation. "Sometimes some of that anger and frustration that accumulates because of the lack of services [for the homeless] really does turn into a rebelliousness about, 'See me. Help me.' Obviously, the answer is not to pretend like it doesn't exist."