Is an attack on a homeless person a hate crime?

The Washington Post reports that question is answered differently by various civil rights organizations:

On the matter of the homeless, however, they are split.

The ADL is opposed. (Michael Lieberman, the Anti-Defamation League’s Washington counsel) ...points to a crucial distinction with homeless individuals: Their status isn’t immutable. “You could be homeless one day and not the next,” he said.

The SPLC disagrees, with (Heidi) Beirich (director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center) noting that the immutability standard already flexes. After all, a person’s religious affiliation is also changeable.

“The homeless are demeaned constantly,” she said, “and often times on the basis of the idea that people think it’s your own fault for being homeless.”