TRANSIENTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD? BLAME THE ACLU\Just try passing ordinances involving minimum standards of public\conduct.

Byline: Robert Teir

CITIES across the country are trying to improve the quality of urban life for their residents and visitors. Their efforts have involved cleaning up urban parks, making downtowns safer and more presentable, and taking action against harassing beggars.

Frequently, these measures call upon the homeless and other people who make the streets their bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms to conform to minimum standards of public conduct.

By passing these measures, a growing number of communities are trying to make their public spaces safe, attractive and welcoming to all.

But when a city takes up legislation to address street-order maintenance problems, it can generally count on opposition from the American Civil Liberties Union. If they actually adopt an ordinance, they should expect to be sued.

With these tactics, ACLU lawyers have become one of the single biggest obstacles to improving urban life.

In their lawsuits, and their arguments to the city councils as well as to the news media, the ACLU will argue that street-order maintenance initiatives are mean-spirited and unconstitutional.

Yet, the cities that have led the way in this area have solid records of treating the homeless in a progressive, tolerant and caring manner. Controls on aggressive begging, for instance, have been adopted in San Francisco, Seattle, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Atlanta, New Haven, Conn., and Baltimore.

Restrictions on the colonization of urban parks have been adopted in West Hollywood, San Francisco, Dallas and Miami. Many of these cities are internationally known for their diversity and compassion.

The ACLU's constitutional arguments are similarly unavailing. Four courts in a row have upheld sidewalk and park use ordinances, including the California Supreme Court.

Similarly, the United States Supreme Court has upheld the last three panhandling controls to come before it.

Yet, the ACLU is like the Energizer bunny: once wound up, it keeps on going, and keeps making the same arguments regardless of how many times it loses in court.

Its lawyers continue to argue for unlimited freedom of conduct in public spaces, and continue to belittle the interests of people who do not feel welcome in their urban parks, who are sick of sidewalks that are obstacle courses, and who feel threatened when asked for money after using an ATM machine.

The arguments that ACLU lawyers make in court are not only extreme, they would be unrecognizable to the framers of the Constitution.

In Dallas, they asserted a constitutional right to sleep in the public place of one's choosing. In San Francisco, they argued for a right to accost people on the street who demanded spare change.

At the South Carolina Supreme Court, they argued for a right to scream as loud as one pleases, regardless of the impact on others.

And, recently, they went to federal court arguing for a constitutional right to sue national parks as rent-free retail space for T-shirt vendors.

In these cases, the ACLU and its allies are holding our public parks and sidewalks hostage.

They claim that limitations on where people can sleep and put their belongings are untenable so long as someone does not have a place to go.

The claim carries with it an implied threat: unless and until cities provide a laundry list of social programs, communities cannot have parks usable by most citizens.What is going on?

Perhaps the ACLU believes that, unless people confront the homeless, popular support for housing and poverty programs will diminish.

But the strategy of encouraging confrontation between urban residents and the homeless is likely to backfire.

By confusing issues of poverty and homelessness, the ACLU promotes the belief that poor people urinate and defecate in public, empty trash cans, harangue passers-by while asking for money, and scream at demons only they can see.

The poor do not act this way - street people do, but, by merging the two in the public's mind, the ACLU has undermined thoughtful efforts to help poor people. And they are using the most downtrodden members of the community as pawns for their political strategy.

The ACLU's arguments in favor of vagrancy, loitering and aggressive begging are not winning, even in cities that leftist advocacy groups consider home base.

Therefore, to achieve their agenda, federal courts are their only hope.

The ACLU cannot win. They either will lose in court, and the rehabilitation of urban cores will continue, making them places where people want to spend time. Or, they will succeed in making urban spaces unmanageable, driving those with options away.

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Photo (Color) Daily ritual A homeless man searches through a park's trash bin. Daily News