Homelessness Law Blog

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 9^th 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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone seems to offer a response to the State of the Union address these days.  We even got two televised responses last night.  So I thought I would as well.  Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot to say.  The President spoke mainly about the future.  Presumably, he and his advisors felt this would be the best political strategy.  Was it?  Who knows?  I’ll leave that to the partisan political commentators on television or in the newspaper.  But from my perspective, the speech was a missed opportunity to talk about how a lot of Americans are still hurting today, and what this President is going to do about it – for make no mistake about it, there are many things he can do.

Let’s break it down. The President told us that education was critical to the country’s future, but didn’t say anything about helping the one million homeless children and youth living in unsafe conditions attend school while their families obtain housing.  President Obama also talked about veterans, but he failed to reiterate his recent statement that the US should have “zero tolerance for veterans homelessness” (he did mention it at a White House event earlier this week).

I also heard a brief mention of housing, but only as part of an argument for government consolidation, premised on a belief that too many federal agencies focus on housing.  Would that this were true.  Where was any mention of the foreclosures that continue to plague American communities, with the related simple pledge to release $1 billion in federal funds to help temporarily unemployed or sick homeowners pay their mortgages and avoid losing their homes? This is money that Congress already gave to the Administration, that will expire at the end of September with the federal fiscal year.  Not to mention, there wasn’t any promise of finding additional funds.

And finally the President talked about tax reform.  How does that impact homelessness?  Well, the home mortgage interest deduction costs the government 3-4 HUD budgets each year.  That’s real money.  And consequently, many of the serious tax reform proposals out there recommend capping it.  If we do that, the question is what to do with new revenues – support our fellow Americans when times are tough or simply reduce the deficit.  A creative hard-charging Administration could work with Congress to get tax reform complete before the 2012 elections, ensuring that a percentage of new revenue helps support our social safety net.

Will the Obama Administration be willing to fight for average people like this?  It’s hard to say.  They’ve got 2012 on the brain.  But for people who are homeless today, that’s a very long time to ask them to wait.

-Jeremy Rosen, Policy Director

As I sit in our warm and comfortable office this holiday season, I don’t feel like celebrating. I’m angry and frustrated – frustrated that in a time where people are struggling, our government seems to be looking at how it can be meaner to the growing number of people in need, not more compassionate. Just look at what we’ve seen in the public policy arena in recent weeks:

First, the City Council of the District of Columbia considered legislation that would require homeless persons to provide proof of residency before being allowed to access a shelter. And the law’s backers, in promoting their bill, declared explicitly that it was intended to prevent homeless people from flooding DC shelters during hypothermia season, when it is too cold to sleep and live outdoors. This bill passed on its first reading, with jingoist councilmembers demanding that DC resources be reserved for DC residents, and ignoring the reality that low income people move constantly between the District, Maryland, and Virginia. Given the first vote, it won’t be surprising if the bill is approved a second time and signed into law. If it is, we can expect more people to die on our city’s streets this winter.

And Washington isn’t the only city deciding to punish poor people in tough times. Word broke last week that the City of New York is conducting an experiment to test its homelessness prevention program.  What’s the experiment? They’re accepting some eligible applicants and denying others, when money is available, just to examine whether helping people prevent homelessness really works. How dare we study people in need as if they were sub-human lab rats? What re-examination of the obvious is next? Next time it rains should we give ten people umbrellas and let ten go without, and see who gets wetter? Perhaps, as many commenters recommended on the New York Times website, we should divide up the wealthy Americans about to receive a great big tax cut. We’ll give half the cut and see whether they create more jobs than the other half, who will be taxed at higher rates so they can serve as a control group.

Speaking of taxes, before President Obama and Congressional Republicans struck a deal last week, tax provisions to benefit corporations had been linked all year with a billion dollars for the National Housing Trust Fund – designed to produce new units of badly needed affordable housing. But when the final deal was struck – the tax changes stayed, while the housing money was nowhere to be found. It will be quite a holiday – as long as you work for a bank that’s foreclosing on homeowners, and aren’t a low wage employee struggling to maintain a job and a place to live.

So what’s most frustrating about this? Perhaps it’s the feeling that our public officials just don’t seem troubled by all of this. Except maybe for one – Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. In an extraordinary display, Senator Sanders took the Senate floor last Friday and held it for more than eight hours.  He spoke passionately about the struggles of working families and other low income Americans, and appealed to our better angels during this holiday season. Thank you, Senator Sanders, for giving a voice to everything I’ve been thinking. I just hope President Obama, Congressional leaders, and local government officials were listening. If they were, perhaps we can look forward to a positive 2011 policy agenda that offers compassionate and fair solutions to difficult social problems.

-Jeremy Rosen, Policy Director

An important aspect of Wall Street reform is the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which will take charge of nearly all federal consumer protection regulation – including regulation of mortgages, student loans, credit cards, and other financial products.  The new Bureau might even be able to help us spread the word about the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA).

Why does the Bureau matter to people concerned about ending homelessness?  Well, what helped kick-start the financial crisis?  The push for universal homeownership, which led to the issuance of risky subprime mortgages.  And once home values plunged, many Americans found themselves held prisoner by crippling consumer debt.  The new Bureau can’t make those debts disappear, but it will be able to write fair rules that help give low income families the chance to stay financially stable, and avoid homelessness.

President Obama is now faced with a decision on who to appoint as the Bureau’s new director.  It should be Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren, who is currently heading up the Congressional Oversight Panel tasked with overseeing implementation of TARP.  In that role, she has been a passionate advocate for helping homeowners avoid foreclosure, unafraid to criticize the actions of an Administration that she supports as too little, too late.  The new Bureau was Warren’s idea, and she worked closely on the legislation with consumer and affordable housing groups.  She knows what PTFA is, and why it’s important.  And finally, she’s got the Jon Stewart seal of approval.

- Jeremy Rosen, Policy Director

A couple of weeks ago, several members of the Law Center’s staff attended a film screening of Alexandra Pelosi’s new documentary, “Homeless: The Motel Kids of Orange County.” The screening was followed by an engaging panel discussion on child  homelessness in the U.S.

I was unable to attend this event, but recently watched the film for myself. I thought it did a tremendous job of highlighting just how tough it is to grow up with 5 people crammed into a motel room, with bedbugs and lice, and without a safe place to play or enough food to eat.  And I appreciated the film’s focus on how these challenges outside of school make it extremely difficult for homeless kids to focus on learning when they’re in school.  All in all – this was a job well done.

The stories couldn’t be more poignant, and even the toughest politician might not be able to hold back tears.  However, despite the reality documented by this film and others, Congress last year determined that these motel kids aren’t homeless.  That’s right – policymakers concluded that the very kids profiled in this documentary have a roof over their heads, so they’re only “at risk” of homelessness.

Why does this happen?  Why can’t we make the connection between media coverage and changed policies?  It happens in other areas – the Washington Post wrote about problems at Walter Reed, and made recommendations for improvements, and soon thereafter a ton of new money was thrown at the problem.  You see, where these stories fall short is in their treatment of solutions. 

We know what would pull each family profiled by Pelosi out of that motel – housing subsidies, some food assistance, and maybe some childcare help as well.  And in the interim, we could really help by ensuring that they get transportation to the same full day schools that their housed peers attend – rather than sitting in a separate and inherently unequal school where second and fourth graders are forced to share a classroom.  But when the media doesn’t talk about solutions, government never takes effective steps to follow up.

Alexandra Pelosi is of course the daughter of Nancy Pelosi – Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.  Speaker Pelosi attended the premiere of her daughter’s film, so we know she understands the suffering that these motel children and their families are experiencing.  So to the Speaker, and her House and Senate colleagues – let’s move beyond feeling bad for these children and their families, and set to work providing the resources to get them out of motels and into stable housing and public schools.

-Jeremy Rosen, Policy Director