Homelessness Law Blog

Yesterday, the Senate passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, sweeping legislation that covers a broad range of financial and housing policy issues. The House had already passed the same bill on June 29. President Obama is expected to sign the legislation into law during the week of July 19. The Act contains several key provisions of importance to homeless and low income Americans.

Of particular note is an extension and clarification of the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act (PTFA), which ensures that renters whose properties go into foreclosure – through no fault of their own – receive adequate notice so they can find new homes. The Law Center helped spur the passage of PTFA last year and has since been advocating for its extension past the original sunset date of 2012. Dodd-Frank extends it to 2014.

To read more about PTFA, see our commentary in the Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity.

The bill also provides new funding for foreclosure prevention measures and efforts to help rebuild housing in blighted communities. Read more about these provisions here.

Today we celebrate these significant victories for housing advocates and the American people!

Photo credit: carlossg

The Law Center applauds three County Commissioners from Charlotte County, Florida, for voting against a proposed anti-lodging ordinance yesterday that would have further marginalized the County’s homeless population.  The anti-lodging ordinance would have prohibited homeless persons from sleeping outside in public spaces anywhere in the county. In a time when these kinds of measures seem to be cropping up all around the country, the rejection of this law is something to celebrate.

The Law Center was part of a coalition of groups, including the Charlotte County Homeless Coalition and the National Coalition for the Homeless, that successfully advocated against the proposed law.

Cities truly need to wake up to the reality of the counterproductive nature of these laws.  Not only do they frequently violate homeless people’s civil rights, but they do nothing to further the goals of cities in getting people off of the street.

No one thinks it is a good idea for human beings to have to live on the streets or in places not meant for human habitation.  But, cycling people in and out of jail and back to the streets does nothing to help them move out of homelessness.  In fact, arresting or citing homeless people under these types of measures only perpetuates their homelessness, as obtaining housing and employment can be more difficult once a person has a criminal record.

In this time of budget crises around the country, communities need to consider the costs of their actions and use their resources more intelligently. According to a nine-city survey of shelter, housing, and jail costs, jail costs are 2 to 3 times higher than providing housing.

While the trend toward criminalizing homelessness has been ongoing for the past couple of decades, decisions like the one yesterday in Charlotte County provide a ray of hope. Let’s hope that more cities will follow their lead in rejecting these very counterproductive measures.

-Tulin Ozdeger, Civil Rights Program Director

Photo Credit: robinsan

Two weeks ago, I did a web training on human rights and homelessness for a small group of advocates in Salt Lake City, Utah at the request of Bill Tibbits, from Crossroads Urban Center.  The training focused on issues of the criminalization of homelessness, where homeless people are ticketed for actions that the rest us take for granted – like sleeping, sitting, or eating – because they are forced to do so in public places.

After the training, Bill and his allies decided to conduct a “sleep-in” in a public park.  They got great press coverage, emphasizing the human rights perspective that sleeping is a necessity of life, and when a person doesn’t have a private place to do that, to deny them the ability to sleep is to deny their right to live as a human being. Sleeping in the park is no one’s idea of a permanent solution, but until we have enough affordable housing available for all, cities should not violate the human rights of homeless persons just because they have nowhere else to go.

Bill sent me this email on Friday: “Today the Chief of Police invited me to a press conference where he thanked me for drawing his attention to this issue, stated that he intended to halt enforcement of the City’s anti-camping ordinance and that he planned to ask the Council to make some revisions to the ordinances.”

One couldn’t ask for a clearer example of the power of human rights as a tool to re-frame the public debate around issues of housing and homelessness: from training to stopping enforcement of a law that violates human rights in two weeks! While we won’t win most of our struggles quite as quickly, such victories emphasize the potential we can hope for, as well as the need to continue to share human rights tools with our allies.

Congratulations again to Bill and his colleagues. We look forward to helping you keep the momentum going forward!

-Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director