Civil Rights

Visit the links on this page to learn more about NCH’s Civil Rights public policy recommendations, action alerts, and research.

Action Alerts:

ACT NOW to protect homeless Americans from hate-motivated violence.
Click here to read the Action Alert [PDF]
View the sign-on letter to Senator Benjamin L. Cardin here [PDF]
View the sign-on letter to Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson here [PDF]

Issues:

Hate Crimes Against the Homeless
Since its first annual report on the subject in 1999, NCH has documented over 700 unprovoked violent attacks against homeless people, with over 200 of those attacks resulting in death. Those incidents have included setting a man on fire, pushing a sleeping woman into a river, and beating a woman’s face with a tire-iron. In many cases, the attackers have never met the victims, and they don’t benefit materially from the attacks; they are motivated only by a dehumanizing bias against homeless persons. Such attacks deserve to be called what they are: hate crimes. The Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Statistics Act and its sister bill, the Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Enforcement Act, would direct the FBI to gather data on potential hate crimes against people experiencing homelessness, and to prosecute accordingly. Those bills were introduced in the 110th Congress by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX). NCH is preparing for reintroduction of those bills this year.

Reports:

“Hate, Violence, and Death on Main Street USA: A Report on Hate Crimes and Violence Against People Experiencing Homelessness, 2008”, August 2009