Homelessness Law Blog

February is Black History Month, and though the Law Center is mindful of how race intersects our work all year ‘round, I’d like to take the opportunity afforded by the holiday to blog about one particular aspect of race and housing law.

The foreclosure crisis has claimed nearly five million homes in the last four years, and almost no community has escaped unscathed.  From inner city Detroit to rural Idaho, homeowners to apartment-dwellers, foreclosures have affected Americans from every walk of life.  But there can be no denying that the crisis has had a disproportionately negative effect on communities of color.   According to the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), about 8% of all African Americans and Latino homeowners lost their homes due to foreclosure compared to only 4.5% of whites, even though white homeowners account for 2/3 of the market.  These homeowners not only lost the place they lived, they most likely lost their greatest asset and sustained serious damage to their credit and financial stability, costs that only add to the wealth gap between the races.

The well-documented “spillover” effects of foreclosure—including vacancy and blight, plummeting real estate values for families able to remain in their homes, and increased crime rates—will continue to be felt more widely in African American and Latino neighborhoods, which CRL estimates will lose close to $200 billion in property values by 2012.  And 40% of Americans at risk of losing their homes due to foreclosure are renters, a group where low-income people of color have always been overrepresented. (more…)

Last week, I spent the holidays in Kansas with my family. We spent a lot of time in the house: playing with the dogs, making dinner, challenging one another in board game matches, unwrapping gifts. As poet Margaret Elizabeth Sangster says, “There’s nothing half so pleasant as coming home again.”

The warmth of family, paired with the warm security of “home” made this a wonderful holiday. But as I enjoyed my time with them, my thoughts continually returned to my homeless neighbors.

Unfortunately, also last week, the U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report that confirmed what homeless advocates have been saying all year. Homelessness is on the rise. Family homelessness, especially. That means more children slept in emergency shelters, in cars, and on unfamiliar couches.

The report demonstrated a nine percent increase in family homelessness – and that’s almost certainly an undercount.  As Maria Foscarinis, the Law Center’s executive director, explained in a Christmas Day interview on NPR, the report’s counts are “limited by existing shelter capacity, which we know is grossly insufficient to meet the need. The national estimate is that only about half of all homeless people are actually sheltered, and that’s due to lack of shelter capacity.”

The report garnered a lot of media attention. In addition to the NPR interview, the Law Center’s comments on the increase in homelessness appeared on Minnesota Public Radio, United Press International (UPI), the Huffington Post, and the Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch.  Behind each of the families who experienced homelessness this year, there is a story, and there is hope.

There are just three days left in 2010. My resolution for 2011 is to work to see a dramatic decline in homelessness.  In what remains of this year, please consider making a financial contribution to support the battle to end homelessness in the year to come. Together, we can make sure that more families spend the holidays at home next year.

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-Whitney Gent, Development & Communications 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

Last night on the Christmas edition of the television show, “Glee,” the Glee Club decided to go caroling to raise money for presents for homeless students who participate in the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Program.  The episode revolves around the conflict between the Grinchy Sue Sylvester, who stole the presents, and the Glee Club, who went on to sing and sing again to ensure they could make the season brighter for the homeless students.

While no child would turn down a wrapped present, the biggest gift many schools can give to homeless children is the gift of education.  The McKinney-Vento Act requires schools to designate a homeless liaison to reach out and identify homeless students, many of whom are too embarrassed to seek help for themselves.  The law enables homeless students to stay enrolled at the school they last attended before becoming homeless, or immediately enroll at the new school wherever they move, even if they don’t have all the regular residency documentation.

While many schools do a great job of implementing the law, many others turn a Grinchy blind eye to the struggles of homeless students in their districts.  Just earlier in the day, I was on the phone with parents crying because they had lost their home to foreclosure.  The parents hadn’t identified themselves to the school as homeless, and the school had failed in its duty to pro-actively identify them. The school had instead kicked their kids out and removed their children’s belongings from their desks in front of all the other students.  Despite the fact that they printed out and highlighted a copy of the law from our website, the school refused to re-enroll the children, and they missed two days of school.  With our assistance, they were able to get the children re-enrolled by the end of the day -  but this never should have happened in the first place.

As we go into the holiday season, we can each do a little something to ensure the gift of public education is shared with homeless students who need it most.  Download a fact sheet from our website, make a few copies, and distribute them at local schools, libraries, laundromats, shelters, or budget motels, so parents and children know their rights.  Please also consider donating to support our work to protect homeless students’ educational access. Even if you can’t sing like the Glee Club, you can still spread holiday cheer to homeless families by sharing the gift of empowerment and knowledge of their right to education.

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

With Thanksgiving now just hours away, most Americans are busy preparing for their most elaborate meal of the year.  Conversations at home and around the office are focused on food; we’re all talking about pie recipes or that timeless canned-versus-fresh-cranberry debate.

But while this is the beginning of a joyful holiday season for some of us, it is a painful time for the millions who are struggling to feed their families.  And there are more hungry Americans than ever.  Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released its most recent data on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.  These numbers show that over 42 million people—14% of the country—rely on the SNAP.  Use is up nearly 60% since the beginning of the recession, as families that have never before relied on government assistance now view food stamps as a lifeline.  The Wall Street Journal recently reported on a sobering trend of 24-hour grocery chains experiencing a “midnight rush” on the first of the month, minutes after electronic food stamp cards are replenished and families can afford to stock their pantries again.  As one Wal-Mart executive noted, “The only reason someone gets out there in the middle of the night and buys baby formula is that they need it, and they have been waiting for it.”

While food stamps are the most popular assistance, largely because they do not have an age limit, SNAP is not the only program that has grown to meet the needs of newly poor Americans.  The federal WIC Program for women, infants, and children saw its annual enrollment edge up 7% nationally last year.  The National School Lunch Program has seen participation reach record levels, not only for free and reduced-price lunches, but also for newer programs to provide breakfast, after-school snacks, and summer meals.  Here in Washington, D.C., where over one-fifth of the population is on food stamps, the D.C. Public Schools recently began serving three meals a day to students in an effort to improve access to nutrition and curb hunger.

I share these facts not to cast a shadow on your own Thanksgiving celebration, but to remind readers that many of our neighbors are experiencing yet another season of hunger.  But there are steps that we can take to combat hunger in our own communities. First, the Child Nutrition Bill is stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives, having passed the Senate. While the Senate chose to fund part of the bill by proposing to cut future food stamp benefits – a short-sighted decision at best – advocates are still supporting the legislation because the White House has pledged to make sure the potential food stamp reductions never go into effect. Please call your House members next week and ask them to pass the Child Nutrition Bill immediately, now that they have had their Thanksgiving dinners. Second, your local food pantry or shelter may need volunteers during the holidays.  Demand at pantries has surged this year. Finally, take the opportunity of having friends and family gathered around the table to bring up some of these important issues.  You’ll be thankful that you did.

-Geraldine Doetzer, Housing Attorney

Photo Credit: Ian Westcott