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homelessness
50+ Groups Demand Biden Go Further on US Housing Crisis
"With the Supreme Court decision to criminalize people who are unhoused, we need you to stand up and create more humane housing policies today."
Aug 13, 2024
In the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that is devastating for homeless people, over 50 organizations on Tuesday urged President Joe Biden to take immediate action to address the nation's housing emergency before his first term ends next January.
"We appreciate the steps your administration has taken to address America's affordable housing crisis," the coalition wrote, applauding his proposed 5% cap on rent hikes for tenants of corporate landlords and "regulatory actions to use public land for affordable housing, provide grants for deeply affordable homes, and require 30-day notice for rent increases and lease expirations."
Noting that Biden is not seeking a second term—Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris is set to face former Republican President Donald Trump in the November election—and the urgency of the housing crisis, the groups argued that "taking stronger action will resonate deeply with working and low-income people and people of color nationwide."
"Now is a critical moment for aggressive action to help end the worst housing and homelessness crisis our country has ever seen, help renters and houseless folks struggling with the cost of rent now, and set the country on a long-term path of providing safe, stable, and permanently affordable rental housing for decades to come," the letter states. "We, the undersigned, are calling on you to show leadership by using your executive authority immediately, to effect change now—during the worst housing and homelessness crisis of a generation."
"We must urgently create a more just and sustainable housing system."
Specifically, the coalition is calling for Biden to issue one executive order to establish an Office of Social Housing at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and another for rent regulations and good cause eviction protections in federally insured properties.
Additionally, the groups want Biden to demand federal legislation supporting the right of all renters to organize and bargain collectively as tenant unions with landlords over rents and living conditions, along with appropriating $1 trillion over a decade to create 12 million permanently affordable homes, as well as $230 billion to fully repair and green existing public housing.
The letter—part of the House Every One! campaign—is led by the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) Action and backed by groups including Stand Up Alaska, Make the Road Connecticut, Delaware Alliance for Community Advancement, Florida Rising, New Georgia Project, Step Up Louisiana, Maryland Communities United, Maine People's Alliance, Detroit Action, TakeAction Minnesota, New York Communities for Change, One Pennsylvania, Texas Organizing Project, and Our Future West Virginia.
As part of the campaign, "during the month of August, thousands of renters and community groups across the country will host local town hall meetings to call on their local and national representatives to crack down on corporate landlords, cap rents, and invest in tenant-owned, permanently affordable green social housing," CPD said in an email Monday.
The coalition wrote to Biden Tuesday that "we must protect families from the looming threat of unprecedented homelessness and displacement; halt Wall Street speculation and corporate landlords' growing influence over the housing market; create truly affordable green social housing; and redress our federal government's history of institutionalized bias, putting us on a path towards greater racial, economic, and gender equity."
"We all deserve a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home," the letter says. "We must urgently create a more just and sustainable housing system."
The letter also stresses that "with the Supreme Court decision to criminalize people who are unhoused, we need you to stand up and create more humane housing policies today, nodding to the City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnsonruling. The right-wing justices ruled that local governments can enforce bans on sleeping outdoors, regardless of whether they are able to offer shelter space.
Some Democrats are under fire for welcoming the June ruling—including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is widely believed to have presidential ambitions. Since the decision, Newsom has issued an executive order directing officials to clear out homeless encampments, participated in clearing of a Los Angeles encampment, and threatened to withhold funding from counties that don't crack down on unhoused people.
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US Supreme Court Justices Should Be Deadly Ashamed for What They Have Done to Homeless People
Let me tell you this: No one wakes up one morning and chooses to be homeless. No one says to themselves, “How fun would it be for my kids and my family to live in a tent without food, water, school, or transportation?”
Aug 11, 2024
I listened with profound sadness to the recent Supreme Court decision Grants Pass v. Johnson, which opens the door for people to be arrested simply for lacking shelter. This decision makes it legal for local governments to target, fine, and even incarcerate people who fall asleep in public areas, regardless of whether there’s safe, accessible shelter available.
Where’s the compassion? Where’s the justice?
I know what it’s like to be without a place to call home. In the years before the pandemic, my husband and I were working hard to buy a house for our children and the animals we rescued. I’d overcome an opioid addiction. We had a small business and were starting to achieve our dreams.
But when the pandemic hit, we lost our business, and our debts quickly mounted. We’d nearly completed the purchase of the house we’d been renting, but we lacked the money to transfer the deed. The owner of the deed decided to evict us.
We live in a small, rural West Virginia town where only two shelters are available—and none that would take our pets. So we lived in a tent with our children and animals for three months.
I’m deeply saddened that our leaders would criminalize people suffering poverty, as if we were living in a Charles Dickens novel.
Losing your home is incredibly destabilizing. Without a fixed address, you can lose benefit payments, official mail, jobs, and other critical opportunities. When I was evicted, I didn’t have time to switch over my license plate to my new vehicle, which caused me to lose my license. I still haven’t been able to regain my driving privileges.
We had to walk long distances for food and water, and we had no way to shower. My children had to change schools, and the emotional strain on them caused behavioral and mental health challenges that no child should have to experience.
We survived with help from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps. We got a tiny amount of cash assistance from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program and health care through Medicaid.
We were eligible for housing assistance, but the wait was impossibly long due to the lack of available affordable housing. That’s not just a problem in West Virginia—the United States has a shortage of more than seven million affordable housing units for people with very low incomes.
Let me tell you this: No one wakes up one morning and chooses to be homeless. No one says to themselves, “How fun would it be for my kids and my family to live in a tent without food, water, school, or transportation?”
The owner of the deed to our house finally relented and reduced the deed fee so we could take possession of our house and move back home. But so much damage had been done to the kids already—and we lost most of our rescued animals.
Once housed, I finished my Masters in Public Administration. But with a felony conviction from my earlier days suffering through addiction, finding a job is challenging. My husband works but has medical challenges. We live paycheck to paycheck, hoping another disaster won’t put us out on the street.
Things need to change for families like mine. The Supreme Court’s cruel decision to penalize people who are suffering is a big step in the wrong direction. How is fining and arresting people who are too poor to pay going to help?
Here’s a better idea. We need to invest in affordable housing, ensure people are paid living wages, and support struggling families with a robust safety net.
I’m deeply saddened that our leaders would criminalize people suffering poverty, as if we were living in a Charles Dickens novel. Our laws must be better, and we must hold our officials accountable. We work hard at doing the right thing—they should, too.
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Newsom Threatens to Defund California Counties That Don't Clear Homeless Encampments
"Gavin Newsom using a Republican Supreme Court's cruel decision in order to pivot to anti-homeless demagogue is shameful and sleazy," said one critic.
Aug 09, 2024
After personally participating in the forced displacement of homeless people in a Los Angeles encampment, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday threatened to withhold funding from counties that don't sufficiently crack down on the unhoused.
Buoyed by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court's recent City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson ruling—which was welcomed by Newsom and other Democratic leaders like San Francisco Mayor London Breed who filed amicus briefs in the case—the governor issued an executive order last month directing officials to clear out homeless encampments, which have proliferated amid rampant economic inequality and stratospheric housing prices in the nation's most populous state.
After taking part in a Thursday sweep of an encampment in Mission Hills in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, Newsom declared: "I want to see results... If we don't see demonstrable results, I'll start to redirect money."
Newsom praised leaders like Breed and Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass for reducing the number of people sleeping on their cities' streets and directed his ire mostly toward county governments.
"This is a sincerely held belief that we need local government to step up," the governor added. "This is a crisis. Act like it."
Newsom has made—and followed through on—similar promises in the past. Last month, his office redirected a $10 million grant for San Diego County to buy so-called "tiny homes" for the unhoused because officials there "could not move with the urgency the housing and homelessness crisis demands."
University of California, Los Angeles sociology professor and homelessness expert Chris Herring toldThe Guardian following Newsom's executive order that the directive is "giving a green light to a harsher approach" to tackling California's unhoused crisis, which critics say criminalizes people for being poor.
"It sends a clear message to municipalities that even if you do not have shelter available, you can go through with this," Herring said. "The law now allows cities and counties to cite and incarcerate individuals for sleeping outside."
In San Francisco—where Breed, a moderate Democrat, is up for reelection in November—police have begun aggressively sweeping homeless encampments. Unhoused residents are given a choice between capacity-challenged shelters, where they're often separated from family and pets and subjected to dangerous conditions, or jail.
This, in a city that's
short several thousand shelter beds.
Some San Franciscans who initially supported police sweeps have recoiled when faced with what one small business owner called the "inhumane" reality of the policy.
As The San Francisco Standard's Christin Evans reported this week:
One woman described to me having her wallet—containing her ID, debit, and EBT cards—pulled from her hand as a police officer proceeded to "taunt" her with possible arrest. Why? Because she declined to accept a bed at a crowded shelter where she would be separated from her husband. A day later, police officers arrived at the site where the couple had relocated a few blocks away and issued a citation for illegal lodging. Now, the couple have a court date to address a "crime" that is punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail.
Experts from across the political spectrum have asserted that homeless sweeps don't work. A study of Los Angeles' homeless population published in July by the Rand Corporation, a Santa Monica-based think tank, found that cleared encampments generally return after a month or two.
"We found continuing evidence that local encampment cleanup activities don't appear to lead to a persistent reduction in the number of unsheltered residents in the area," study co-author Jason Ward said during a video conference, according to an article published last week by The American Prospect. "They just tend to move them around and the numbers tend to return in our relatively small area to previous trends pretty quickly."
"Homelessness is dangerous, humiliating, and traumatic. Nobody needs to be reminded of these truths," article author Nicholas Slayton wrote. "If Gavin Newson wants to fix the problem, he could work to get more housing built, especially affordable units—by, for instance, signing rather than vetoing a social housing bill."
"But if he wants to sweep the problem under the rug so as to pretend like he's doing something useful while actually making the problem worse, he could continue on his present course," he added.
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