Homelessness Law Blog

My first day at the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty was 5 years ago last Sunday. At that point, in the middle of 2006, our housing market was being celebrated as a boom, making huge profits for some, though we know that even in those supposed times of plenty, millions of people experienced homelessness each year, and as real estate prices increased, gentrification was forcing more and more people out of their homes. 

But because the market was apparently making so many people winners, it was tough to make the case for those who were the victims of the market that the government needed to play a role in rebalancing the market or correcting for its failures. And at that point, the Bush Administration firmly denied that housing could be conceived of as a right, and was actively flaunting any notion that human rights standards should bind our behavior. 

5 years later, we’re in a very different place. On the negative side, our housing boom went bust, forcing millions more families and individuals to struggle with their housing costs, suffer through poor conditions, and at worst, sending them onto the streets. On the positive side, President Obama has committed his administration to ending – not just coping with – homelessness, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has stated that human rights norms have a role in shaping our housing policy, and the State Department has brought us back into the international fold by affirming housing and other economic and social rights as rights. 

While the reality for people on the ground remains grim, these are more than rhetorical changes. And they didn’t happen by accident. There has been a growing movement for the human right to housing over these past 5 years, and I believe that these initial changes are just the beginning for a new kind of housing policy, one that recognizes housing as a basic human right.  

This Tuesday and Wednesday, we held our 6^th National Forum on the Human Right to Housing, which was itself evidence of this change. 5 years ago, we would have been hard pressed to get a State Department official to talk about housing as a human right, let alone a domestic agency official. But this year, most of our panels had representatives from HUD, Justice, Veterans Affairs, and other domestic agencies, all of whom increasingly understand their roles not just as executors of policy, but as implementers of our human rights obligations. The more than 150 participants at the Forum from all across the country drew from a wide range of lawyers, advocates, and directly affected victims of the housing crisis, all ready to work together to promote housing as a human right. C-SPAN covered our closing plenary, moderated by author and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, in which 3 formerly homeless individuals shared their stories and explained why they believe calling housing a human right is essential. And the Forum concluded with a briefing at the Capitol on a human rights analysis of the Federal Plan to End Homelessness, attended by dozens of Congressional staffers and interns, as well as other advocates. 

In the next 5 years, I’ve got big dreams for implementing the human right to housing here in the U.S. Of course many of those dreams may not be realized, but if you had told me 5 years ago that we would have come this far already, I wouldn’t have believed it. So here’s hoping for the best, and looking forward to 5 more years of progress! 

-Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director/Children & Youth Attorney

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