Members of Camp Home, a homeless tent community outside of the Mesilla Valley Community of Hope, told KFOX14 they urge legislators to pass a proposed bill that would include homeless people in the New Mexico Hate Crimes Act.

New Mexico's Hate Crimes Act was approved in 2003. It allows a judge to increase the sentencing for someone who commits a crime because of bias or prejudice, which includes crimes against people based on race, religion, handicap and sexual orientation.

State Sen.-elect Bill O'Neill in Albuquerque wants to add homeless people to that list.

"It would take some weight off the shoulders of citizens around here," Camp Hope member Joshua Jackson said.

"We're still humans," Camp Hope co-founder James Von Behren said.

Von Behren said that he has had many friends who were attacked while living on the streets.

He told KFOX14 that one friend, who was 68 years old, was targeted by a group of teenagers.

"They had burned his tent up out here at the lake with him in it," Von Behren said. "He was attacked while he was asleep and they just attacked him and starting kicking him and hitting him."

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, there were eight reported non-deadly hate crimes against homeless people in New Mexico between 1999 and 2009.

In July, 62-year-old homeless man, James David Vaughn, was killed in Las Cruces and his body left in a canal on Amador Avenue.

Camp Hope member Dother Sykes said the threat of harsher penalties for offenders in crimes like the one against Vaughn would offer more protection for the homeless.

"Most of the homeless people are old people and defenseless," Sykes said. "You got a lot of people that are mentally challenged and they become easy targets."

Six states have already including homeless people in hate crimes laws, including Maryland, Florida and Maine.