ANNAPOLIS — Maryland is on track to be the first state in the country to include homeless people in a hate crimes statute, courtesy of legislation championed by a state lawmaker who vociferously opposed other hate crime bills.

Alaska and Maine have passed measures authorizing increased penalties for people who attack the homeless, but Maryland would be the first to include homeless people in a hate crime statute, according to Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. Similar bills are pending in the Ohio, Florida and California legislatures, he adds.

“We need to send a symbolic and practical message that attacks against the homeless will not be tolerated,” Stoops said. He said there were “three or four” attacks and possibly two murders of homeless people in Maryland last year, and 160 attacks across the country, including 28 murders, in 2007 — the last year in which he has data available.

“We think the problem is worse than we know,” Stoops said. “Many homeless people assume attacks are part of street life and don’t bother to report it.”

Sen. Alex Mooney, R-Frederick/Washington, has sought to include homeless people in the hate crime statute for years — and struggled to get some lawmakers to believe his efforts weren’t an attempt to “water down” hate-crime protections.

Some lawmakers were skeptical because Mooney voted no when the law was broadened several years ago to include increased penalties for crimes against people based on sexual orientation.

Dan Furmansky, former director of the gay rights group Equality Maryland, called Mooney’s devotion to the bill ironic.

“Sen. Mooney was the strongest opponent to adding sexual orientation to the state’s hate crimes statute we had,” Furmansky said. “But, certainly this important law enforcement and prosecutorial tool should be extended to any community that is vulnerable, including the homeless.”

Mooney insists, however, that his four-year-effort is sincere.

“It wasn’t a protest measure,” Mooney said. “You can’t give special protections to homosexuals but say homeless and other groups can’t have it.”

Mooney’s bill has passed the Maryland Senate before, but Mooney had never been able to get his bill through the state’s House of Delegates Judiciary Committee. This year, however, a Democratic committee member, Delegate Ben Kramer, wanted to add gender, age and disability to the state’s hate crime statute. State lawmakers approved a compromise shortly before adjourning Monday adding extra penalties for violent crimes against victims singled out because of gender, disability, or homelessness. The law already covers victims attacked because of race, religion, national origin or sexual orientation.

Homeless advocate Stoops said he didn’t testify for the bill this year, as he has every other year, because he was overwhelmed with other projects and thought it stood little chance of advancing.

“We didn’t think there was a chance in hell, because of the reception it’s gotten in previous years,” Stoops said.

Aides to Gov. Martin O’Malley said he hadn’t reviewed this year’s legislation, but he has supported the homelessness addition to the hate crimes law in previous years.

Bill Smith, 54, who was homeless for a year and a half in Maryland, says Mooney’s measure is worthwhile because homeless people are an easy target, just as vulnerable as other groups protected under hate crime law.

Smith was never attacked, but he says that may be because he deliberately lived in a tent in wooded locations far from foot paths and eyesight.

“I made it a point to keep my place secret because I didn’t want any threats on my life,” Smith said. “The thought was always in the back of my mind that if I was to disappear — no one would miss me. I would just be that bum on the corner that doesn’t come around anymore.”

On the Net:

Read Senate Bill 151: http://mlis.state.md.us/2009rs/billfile/SB0151.htm