The fight to end the criminalization of the homeless received a big win on Monday after Indianapolis became the first U.S. city to pass a Homeless Bill of Rights measure.

The bill now awaits a signature from the city's mayor. 

According to Al Jazeera America, the city's proposal would protect the rights of homeless people to move freely in public spaces, to receive equal treatment from the city's agencies, to receive medical care, to vote, and to maintain privacy for personal property.

Under this bill, the city will be required to give a homeless person a 15 day notification to leave a camp, authorities would be required to store a homeless person's belongings for 60 days and officials will be responsible for referring them to organizations that could provide services and transitional housing.

Activists are pushing for the adoption of this bill in other cities across the U.S. These policies would allow the homeless the right to rest in public areas.

Since 2008 the U.S. has seen a rise in the homeless population. Strict laws exist in many places targeting the homeless and focus on arresting them for sleeping or eating in public spaces. 

The effort to develop laws ending the criminalization of homelessness comes from a coalition of over 125 social justice groups focused on developing a bill of rights nationwide for the homeless. The group is called the Western Regional Advocacy Project.

The coalition focuses on six priority areas to be included in the Homeless Bill of Rights. These include the right to move freely and sleep in public spaces without discrimination, to sleep in a parked vehicle, to eat and exchange food in public, to obtain legal counsel, to access hygiene facilities 24/7 and to use the necessity defense in any criminal prosecution.

There are similar state laws in place in Rhoda Island, Illinois and Connecticut. Rather prosecuting displaced people, supporters of the bill and advocates for homelessness argue providing support services makes more sense for public budgets.

"It is much more cost-effective to provide support services and assistance to those experiencing homelessness in our city than to arrest them," Indianapolis councilman LeRoy Robinson said.