“We sleep in the Ramble,” Jones said. “They have a gazebo there and it’s pretty dark at night. There’s no lights in this area. It’s out of the public eye and out of everybody’s way.”

Sleeping in the park is not as easy as finding an out-of-the-way bench. Central Park closes at 1 a.m., and anyone found within its boundaries after that time can be ticketed for trespassing. But Jones said homeless people are singled out and treated as criminals for breaking a park rule and not a law. He staged a “sleep-in” with members of Picture the Homeless, an advocacy group, to protest the selective ticketing in November.

Picture the Homeless gathered cardboard boxes and blankets and set them up at the gazebo in the Ramble on the cold November night of the protest. But shortly after 1 a.m., six protesters, including Jones and Rice, were arrested by police, who had been notified of the protest via press release. Jones was the last person to be released, 36 hours after the arrest.

“Homeless people are put through the criminal system for non-criminal act,” said Lynn Lewis of Picture the Homeless at a press conference following Jones’ release. “It’s a form of harassment and its an example of selective enforcement because not everybody who violates these park regulations are treated the same way and certainly not put through the criminal system for being in the park after hours.”

Rice, who sometimes sleeps at his brother’s house in Brooklyn or on the subway, said the police harassment in the park has died down since the protest.

“We don’t have many homeless people in this park but when we run across them we try to be nice to them and treat them like people,” Sgt. Glen Ramroop of the NYPD’s Central Park precinct said. “If we find them we refer them to shelters.”

For many homeless, the solution is not as simple as going to a shelter. 

“The shelters won’t make you safe from gang members that are all over the shelters and pick on the elderly like me,” Rice said. “On top of the city taxing you and taking away from your public assistance for staying in the shelter, the gang taxes you.”

The park has its own risks. Rice has been harassed by teens; one group cut his bag of cans and laughed as the aluminum tumbled onto the ground. Jones said he has seen people being robbed and heard screams in the darkness.

“It’s not safe,” Jones said. “I just do it because I’m confident in myself. It’s comfortable to me.”

Rice wants the freedom to choose what’s best for him as well.

“I don’t stay in the park that often,” he said, “but I would like to have the right to stay there when I do.”