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UPCOMING: 25th Anniversary of the McKinney-Vento Act

Posted on June 21, 2012
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Dear Friends,

On behalf of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, please accept our invitation to recognize with us the 25th Anniversary of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, as we consider “The State of Homelessness and Poverty in America.”

Please join us and our special guests, Congresswoman Judy Biggert (IL-R) and Congressman Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL), from 2 - 4 PM on Thursday, July 19 at the National Association of Realtors’ top floor and roof-deck at 500 New Jersey Ave., NW.  The event will feature Tom Morgan’s new documentary film, “These Storied Streets,” which shares the heartbreaking and inspiring stories of several homeless people and is narrated by Susan Sarandon.

We will also give special recognition to the Law Center’s exemplary LEAP member and pro bono partners. *

Please RSVP to anniversary@nlchp.org, or (202) 638-2535.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Sincerely,
Maria Foscarinis
Executive Director

* · Akin Gump   · Covington & Burling   · Dechert LLP   · DLA Piper   · Fried Frank   · Hogan Lovells   · Jenner & Block  · Katten Muchin Roseman   · Schulte Roth & Zabel   · Sidley Austin   · Simpson Thacher   · Sullivan Cromwell   · WilmerHale

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Equity, Prosperity, and the American Identity

Posted on June 19, 2012
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“People need to live somewhere, and in the absence of other shelter, that will be in public,” said Maria Foscarinis, speaking Monday on a panel discussing the inequities of access to housing and urban poverty. The founder and executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty spoke on the second of a series of panels leading up to the 6th Annual World Urban Forum in September.

The June 18th panel, entitled, “Equity and Prosperity: Distribution of Wealth and Opportunities,” opened with the moderator posing the question of why policymakers should be concerned with equality in the first place. Read more »

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The Full Scope of Homelessness

Posted on May 16, 2012
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Disability benefits. Domestic violence.  Tent cities.  Homelessness cuts across many different issues, and these are just a few of them, taken from the topics addressed in this month’s In Just Times.

As I wrote about in my recent Huffington Post article, homelessness affects a wide swath of the U.S. population—and the breadth and depth of its reach is increasing, as foreclosures and unemployment continue to take their toll on low-income and, increasingly, middle-income families and individuals. You wouldn’t necessarily know this from looking at some of the data released by HUD, which most recently reported a 2.2 percent decrease in the numbers.  That’s because HUD defines homelessness very narrowly, excluding many people without homes. Read more »

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April Showers Bring May Flowers

Posted on May 14, 2012
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As the early spring’s plantings start to blossom in my yard, I’ve also been appreciating that the seeds for the human right to housing, some planted years ago, have also started to bloom.

In early April, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and Department of Justice issued a groundbreaking report condemning the growing trend toward criminalizing homelessness, warning that such policies “undermine real solutions” and may violate the constitutional and human rights of homeless people, including U.S. treaty obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention Against Torture.

This is the first time a domestic policy report has referenced our international treaty obligations, let alone saying our domestic policies might actually violate them!

We planted this seed in 2009 when our advocacy secured passage of the HEARTH Act, a requirement of which was to produce a report on criminalization.  We nurtured this by hosting numerous representatives of the Interagency Council and the Justice Department at our National Forums on the Human Right to Housing, as well as meeting with them through the Universal Periodic Review and in consultations with UN experts to discuss housing and homelessness in a human rights context.  We’re seeing a formal analysis of human rights treaties blossom as part of the government’s domestic policy discussion.

Last week, three UN human rights experts on extreme poverty, housing, and water and sanitation welcomed this domestic recognition of human rights.  “This report,” a press statement said, “could generate a tangible difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands homeless Americans.  By identifying viable and effective alternative practices and policies, it will not only assist the US Government in complying with its international human rights obligations, but also in addressing the root causes of homelessness.”

Evidence of where future blossoms may sprout comes from my trip to Eugene, Oregon, toward the end of April.  While there, at the invitation of the Eugene Human Rights Commission, I met with many local service providers, homeless persons, and advocates, as well as the mayor, city manager, three city councilors, and numerous other city staff, to discuss implementing the human right to housing at the local level.

As Eugene worked earlier this year to disperse the OCCUPY Eugene encampment, activists demanded a process to address the needs of homeless persons in the camp who had no home to go to.  They subsequently developed the Opportunity Eugene Task Force, a 58-member dialogue which produced a series of recommendations, including a recognition of the human right to housing in Eugene.  The mayor and city council are currently considering the recommendations.

So far as I’m aware, my meeting is the first time high-level city officials have sat down for two full hours to discuss the human rights implications of homelessness.  While the city has many challenges in working to implement the full recommendations of the Task Force, some are more immediately achievable, such as examining the city’s laws to ensure their enforcement does not criminalize homelessness and produce the counter-productive effects cited in the Interagency Council’s report.  Others, like creating a safe ground for homeless persons to camp without harassment and with necessary water and sanitation services, may serve as an interim step to full enjoyment of the right to housing.

There’s still much more work to be done before we can fully enjoy the fruits of our labor, with every American enjoying their basic human right to housing.  But seeing these initial blossoms inspires me to keep on cultivating, with the knowledge that those fruits are on their way.

- Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director

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Parades and Ribbons Are Not Enough

Posted on July 20, 2011
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One of the Law Center’s central tenets is to address not only the consequences of homelessness but also its underlying causes. Like many advocates, we proceed from the understanding that housing insecurity doesn’t arise in a vacuum but, rather, stems from conscious decisions, priorities, and prejudices on the part of policymakers. Under this premise, homelessness is less an inevitable social ill than the result of avoidable errors. One such error is the tendency, particularly pronounced at the moment, to erect barriers to economic support for low-income individuals as an immediate cost-saving strategy, without regard for the long-term costs of widespread poverty.

For many military veterans unable to maintain employment as a result of service-related injuries, disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) serves as a vital source of income security and a bulwark against poverty and homelessness, a condition that claims 107,000 veterans on any given night. Studies have long pointed to income support as among the most important distinguishing factors between domiciled and homeless veterans; an especially strong link has been found to exist between increased public benefits and successful housing outcomes for those with mental illness.

Despite this correlation, access to VA benefits has long been systematically obstructed for millions of veterans desperately in need of support. Under current law, veterans must prove by documentary evidence not only that they are disabled but also that their disabilities stem directly from military service, a labor-intensive process that routinely lasts for years. While this system imposes a toll on all claimants, its burden falls with particular weight on those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Deeming its symptoms “relatively easy to fabricate,” the VA Clinician’s Guide directs examiners to marshal elaborate documentation of behavioral changes from pre- to post-service status.

In recent years, a number of advocacy groups have sued the VA in federal court, arguing that the agency’s failure to issue timely claims decisions violates the constitutional due process rights of veterans with PTSD. After failing to obtain relief at the trial level, the groups appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where not long ago they achieved a stunning victory.

The decision is particularly remarkable for what it suggests about the government’s abdication of its duty to a population routinely invoked in political rhetoric. “There comes a time,” Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote for the majority, “when the political branches have so completely and chronically failed to respect the People’s constitutional rights that the courts must be willing to enforce them. We have reached that unfortunate point with respect to veterans who are suffering from the hidden, or not hidden, wounds of war.”

While the VA has petitioned the Court of Appeals for a rehearing of the case (previously argued before a three-judge panel) before the full bench, its outcome won’t alter the underlying fact that the government has an obligation to stem the tide of homelessness that threatens to engulf more and more men and women in uniform as they return home from serving their country. When it comes to honoring our veterans, parades and ribbons are simply not enough.

- Rachel Natelson, Staff Attorney

Photo credit: Punchup
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Holy Allies in the Fight for the Human Right to Housing

Posted on July 14, 2011
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Earlier this week, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (the Conference) sent a letter to the House of Representatives expressing their opposition to H.R. 2441, a bill which would eliminate the National Housing Trust Fund, which funds affordable housing programs.

The Conference’s opposition to this bill comes as no surprise, given their longstanding support for the Trust Fund, which originally passed in 2008. What may surprise some, however, is that the Conference frames this strong support for affordable housing in their affirmation that “Catholic tradition teaches that affordable and decent housing is a human right.”

Indeed, since at least 1975, the USCCB has explicitly addressed housing as a human right.  In “The Right to a Decent Home: A Pastoral Response to the Crisis in Housing,” the USCCB sets out their position, which is sadly equally relevant today as it was over 30 years ago. There, they state, “Since decent housing is a human right, its provision involves a public responsibility. The magnitude of our housing crisis requires a massive commitment of resources and energy.” As they then stated in their February 2011 brief on the Trust Fund, “Unfortunately, such a ‘massive commitment’ has not been forthcoming.”

The human rights framework is based on the premise that every human being is entitled to basic treatment to ensure their dignity. Whether that premise is grounded in religious, moral, or ethical terms, hopefully we can all agree that every person should have a safe, decent, affordable place to call home, and that where the market fails, the government should provide a structure to ensure that no one is left on the streets.

Unfortunately, this week the House subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government Sponsored Enterprises voted to pass H.R. 2441 eliminating the Trust Fund. Worse, they have shown no indication of proposing any policies that would replace it with a better system of ensuring that every American can enjoy their right to housing.

While religion is sometimes a divisive issue, the human right to housing is one of those shared values that can unite us.  We welcome the Conference’s support, and hope that Americans of all faiths will stand together to tell their congressional representatives that housing is a basic human right, and they need to take the steps to make that right a reality.

- Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director

Photo credit: Catholic Church
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What Could You Do With $400 Million?

Posted on May 16, 2011
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In a recent series of cover stories, the Washington Post reported that over $400 million in federal HUD HOME funds meant to help local communities build affordable housing for low-income people has gone missing.  This is a terrible thing.  It’s reprehensible that sketchy developers, property flippers, and other unsavory people are siphoning off money meant for poor people, just to line their own pockets.

And given that there is already far too little funding available to build new housing, we can’t afford to waste even a dollar of what we do receive.  Especially because stories like this only serve as fodder for politicians and other interest groups who argue that building affordable housing is an inefficient or ineffective use of tax dollars.  How do we ask Congress to give us more money for programs we know generally work well, when the front page of the Post shows them working poorly?

As advocates for affordable housing, and indeed taxpayers ourselves, we should be outraged by this story.  At the same time, we must undertake a sober evaluation of the facts.  The questionable expenditures occurred over a period of five years, and accounted for less than .2 percent of HUD’s budget each year.  HUD can and should exercise better control over the use of its funds, but make no mistake – this is no indictment of HUD as an agency or of the principle that all people have a human right to safe, decent, affordable housing.  That’s a principle no amount of money can impugn.

- Jeremy Rosen, Policy Director

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National Forum on the Human Right to Housing

Posted on May 4, 2011
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The National Forum on the Human Right to Housing, to be held June 7-8 at the Thurgood Marshall Center in Washington, D.C., couldn’t come at a better time.

There’s an obvious disconnect between Washington rhetoric and the American story.  As Congress debates tax breaks for its wealthiest constituents and major cuts to the social safety net, more than 44 million homeless and poor people are waiting to learn their fate.  That’s 14 out of every 100 Americans.  Will they have a roof over the heads?  Food to feed their children?

With the gap between rich and poor growing exponentially, it’s only common sense for our policies to reflect the increasing need.  But there’s something lost in all of this, an inconvenient truth policymakers have been ignoring for decades: housing is a human right.

The United States is obligated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other international agreements, to ensure its every citizen has access to adequate housing and a basic standard of healthy living.  And across the country, Americans agree.  Recent polling shows that 75 percent believe housing is a human right.

At the National Forum on the Human Right to Housing, the Law Center will bring together homeless and poor people, federal policymakers, grassroots advocates, service providers, lawyers, journalists, and academics from across the country to share information and work collaboratively to reframe the public debate about homelessness, poverty, and access to justice.

This year’s speakers are leading experts on these issues. Here’s  a small sample:

  • Carol Anderson, Assoc. Professor of African American Studies, Emory University, and author of Eyes Off the Prize
  • Peter Edelman, Professor of Law and Director of the Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy, Georgetown University School of Law
  • Barbara Ehrenreich, best-selling author of Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
  • Pam Fessler, poverty & philanthropy correspondent, National Public Radio
  • Bryan Greene, General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing at HUD
  • Jonathan Harwitz, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy & Programs at HUD
  • Gail Laster, Deputy Chief Counsel for the House Financial Services Committee
  • Barbara Poppe, Executive Director, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

Click here for a full schedule of events.

The Forum comes on the heels of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s recent review of U.S. human rights policy.  In its official response to the Council’s recommendations, the federal government acknowledged for the first time in history that homelessness implicates its human rights obligations.

Now is the time to mobilize communities across the country to fight for the dignity and basic quality of life of every American.  The Forum will include workshops on applying the human rights framework to advocacy on issues like: preventing homelessness, criminalization, children’s education, state and local budgets, domestic violence, and veteran homelessness.

Forum participants will even receive training on how to communicate with legislators on these issues, and have the opportunity to meet with their elected representatives.

We hope you’ll join us on June 7-8 at the Thurgood Marshall Center in Washington, D.C.  The Forum is a chance for the U.S. human rights movement to chart a course for the future – one, we hope, in which the American Dream more closely reflects our daily reality.

For more information, click here. Early registration is discounted, but ends May 15, so act fast!

-Andy Beres, Grant Writer & Communications Assistant

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A Spirit of Revolution

Posted on March 3, 2011
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For the past month, a spirit of revolution has gained force both abroad and at home.  Days after mounting popular protests culminated in the disintegration of authoritarian rule in the Middle East, a parallel uprising has emerged on our own shores, translating once distant demands for democracy and economic opportunity into a familiar tongue.  In Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana, thousands of workers continue to rally in defense of the very protections that their parents and grandparents wrested from their own employers during similarly shaky economic times almost a century ago.

Historic times demand historic measures.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. cautioned, “one of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses, that the new situation demands.”  Like Rip Van Winkle, “they end up sleeping through a revolution.”

While King issued this admonition over thirty years ago, his words reverberate with renewed urgency today.  Like FDR before him, he understood that even at moments of crisis, such long-cherished guarantees as free speech, free worship, and freedom from political tyranny are meaningless in the absence of economic security.  “If a man doesn’t have a job or an income,” King noted, “he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists.”

Amid growing state efforts to weaken employment protections, this vision of interlocking civil and economic rights is more relevant than ever.  If true liberty lies in freedom from want, then economic security can be no more negotiable than free speech or free worship, a concept embedded in the human rights principle of “progressive realization.”  In other words, once we’ve advanced along the path of economic justice, we can’t retreat in the face of an altered political landscape, however rocky it may be.

A hundred years ago, another gilded age came to an abrupt end as rich and poor together foundered on a vessel that symbolized the growing gulf between them.  As the winds of political and economic change continue to batter the employed and unemployed alike, policymakers can either doze at the helm of a similarly troubled ship or plunge into rough waters to stem the tide for those at greatest risk.  If history fails to guide them, perhaps the fictional fate of Rip Van Winkle will succeed.

- Rachel Natelson, Staff Attorney

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Have a Heart, Save Our Homes

Posted on February 14, 2011
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It will be a bitter-sweet Valentine’s Day for many across the country who have already lost their homes due to the foreclosure and economic crises, but should the budget proposals put forth by the House come to pass, things will get even worse.

Even as the need for assistance continues to increase with the ongoing economic crisis, as many as 750,000 Section 8 tenants could be cut off from federal assistance as early as this spring, if the proposed $101 billion cut is applied across the board to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.  At the same time, the Obama Administration will release its request for FY 2012 today.  The Administration is weighing a cut of $1 billion from the $4 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which funds local housing programs, and a 5% cut to HUD overall.  The President has proposed a five year “freeze” on all domestic programs. But reducing or eliminating the Mortgage Interest Deduction, as recommended by Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission, would save $104 billion – enough to create a homeowner tax credit for most homes, build new housing, expand vouchers and even reduce the deficit!

Congress seems determined to pass cuts to spending regardless of the consequences to people living in their towns. But imagine 750,000 parents having to explain to their children that they are losing their home. Imagine millions of hearts breaking. That’s why on Valentine’s Day, low-income tenants from over 15 cities coast-to-coast are holding coordinated actions calling on Congress to “Have a Heart, Save Our Homes” from the proposed cuts to the housing budget.

Join with these tenants by calling your Representatives and Senators to help them realize the human consequences of this arbitrary budget slashing, and ask them to “Have a Heart, Save Our Homes!”  See our allies at the National Alliance of HUD Tenants for talking points and more information.

-Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director

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