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NCH is proud to work with the Ali Forney Center to launch the National Campaign for Youth Shelter, a collaboration that will build a grassroots campaign to demand a national response to youth homelessness.

The National Campaign for Youth Shelter calls include the following:

A federal commitment to provide all youths age 24 and under with immediate access to safe shelter, affirming the principle that no young person in the United States should be left homeless in the streets.
An immediate commitment to add 22,000 beds with appropriate services. (This number corresponds to the number of youths identified in the most recent Point In Time Count of homeless persons conducted by the federal government).
A more accurate and comprehensive effort to count the number of homeless youth in the nation in order to determine the number of beds that are needed over the next decade.

The campaign is going to hold rallies in New York City and Washington, DC, to launch the campaign as a priority within the LGBT movement. The New York City rally will be held on June 2. Details to come.

LGBT youth are disproportionately over-represented in the homeless youth population, with as many as 40% of the nation’s homeless youth being LGBT, while only 5% of the overall youth population is LGBT.

Currently, there are only approximately 4,000 youth shelter beds in the United States, yet as many as 500,000 unaccompanied youths experience homelessness each year.

“It’s indefensible that our nation would abide hundreds of thousands of young people to be homeless and on their own,” says Jerry Jones, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “The National Campaign for Youth Shelter will highlight the urgency of basic emergency shelter as we work toward permanent solutions to this crisis.”

The National Campaign for Youth Shelter has gained the support and endorsement of over 30 organizations, including: GLAAD, the Alliance for a Just Society, Campaign for America’s Future, Campus Pride, Center for Community Change, Center for Popular Democracy, CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers, Coalition on Human Needs, Covenant House, Empire State Pride Agenda, Family Acceptance Project, Family Equality Council, Garden State Equality, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, GLSEN, the Hetrick Martin Institute, Housing Assistance Council, It Gets Better Project, Matthew Shepard Foundation, National AIDS Housing Coalition, National Black Justice Coalition, National Domestic Workers Alliance, National Health Care for the Homeless Council, National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, National Low Income Housing Coalition, NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, Partnership for Working Families, Rebuild the Dream, the Ruth Ellis Center, Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, Treatment Action Group, USAction, and You Can Play Project.

“It is unprecedented to have so many LGBT organizations join together with prominent national housing and anti-poverty organizations to fight for the humane treatment of impoverished youths.” says Carl Siciliano, executive director of the Ali Forney Center. “With all this support, the National Campaign for Youth Shelter will build a movement to finally prevent youths from being left to suffer homelessness without access to shelter. The wealthiest nation on earth must not allow its youths to be left out in the streets.”

David Jaure’s film, 3:13, tells the story of a man falling on hard times. Together, we experience the emotionally taxing moments of losing work, facing familial tension, and many other struggles that those who find themselves homeless confront. There is no one face of homelessness, but the character in this film feels familiar and his story resonates. Despite the many different ways one can fall into homelessness, there are several common experiences that the majority of people living in a state of homelessness may likely share. They are discriminated against by individuals, businesses, and law enforcement. They are stereotyped and treated poorly by people who are blinded by their prejudices. They are victimized because of the vulnerable position that they are in. This film walks us through a day in the life of one man who has lost everything to show us the unjust nature of homelessness and how it is perceived by many in this country.

Discrimination and Economic Profiling among the Homeless of Washington, DC is a new report documenting the extent to which homeless individuals in Washington, DC feel that they have experienced discrimination as a result of their housing status. In the fall of 2013, The National Coalition for the Homeless and graduate students of George Washington University Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration created a survey to examine experiences of discrimination by housing agents, employers, health service providers, and law enforcement due to housing status.

Homeless individuals have long told staff at NCH that they perceive discrimination brought on by their housing status. In light of this, the National Coalition for the Homeless has been tracking discrimination against homeless individuals for years.

One homeless individual explains that homelessness can mean being turned away at the door of a “coffee shop … due to my attire, push cart, my extra bags.” This type of discrimination is typical in the life of a person experiencing homelessness.

This recent study revealed that discriminatory actions most often came from private business and law enforcement. Specially, 70% of the respondents felt they had been discriminated against by private business and 66 % of the respondents felt the same discrimination from law enforcement.

The National Coalition for the Homeless advocates for Washington, DC and other states to consider passing a Homeless Bill of Rights, which would guarantee equal treatment for people who are un-housed. This new law would not create special rights or privileges, but rather protect homeless people from discrimination while seeking employment, emergency medical care, and the right to move freely in public.

View the full report here!

From October 10-12, I participated in the National Coalition for the Homeless’ Homeless Challenge. I spent 48 hours living on the streets disguised as an unhoused person—sleeping outside, panhandling, and walking blocks and blocks to access food, a bathroom, transportation, and other services.

On our first night, my partner and I walked for hours in the rain. We slept in the rain with minimal coverage. My shoes and socks and waterproof jacket were soaked; my skin became like prunes. Despite the cardboard we collected, I shivered throughout the night, completely unprepared. I lay awake for hours. In the middle of the night, I got up, in need of a bathroom; I went to a fast food restaurant—like I have done in the past—but I was denied, even when I offered to purchase something. Shocked and discouraged, I walked to a fancy hotel, where I was given a key to the bathroom. For the first time that night, I felt like a human being.

The next day, I experienced this similar feeling of overwhelming gratitude when strangers helped me. I was allowed to sleep on the floor of a worship center because it was raining, and two hours of sleep at night is not enough to compensate for all of the walking we had to do. A kind volunteer at a feeding program gave me crackers, peanut butter, and cookies. One woman slowed down her car and offered us a ride and food. In the afternoon, four or five strangers reached into their wallets and gave me what they could. I made $9.43 while panhandling, and I was relieved to know that I could eat again that day. In the evening, I was welcomed by a sit-down restaurant’s owners, despite the disgust of the other customers. A $5.00 salad had never tasted so good.

Some people were less empathetic. I was kicked out of a fast food restaurant and into the rain on our second morning. Strangers sneered and laughed as they watched us. When we went to the library, I was sprayed with some sort of perfume (without my consent) due to the aroma I had acquired after not showering, applying deodorant, or brushing my teeth for three days.

I recorded the names of the businesses that treated me like a second-class citizen (as well as those that treated me as human). I wanted to expose them and take revenge. They made me feel angry and lonely because they could not see past my stench and my grime and my grimace. They were privileged enough to ignore me, and they did.

But what good would it do to retaliate? I, too, have not been compassionate enough, and I have allowed my prejudices to distort my view of the homeless. One woman, who sat across from me at a feeding program, talking to herself erratically, may have seemed strange to me before the Homeless Challenge. But when I really saw myself as her equal, and when I took the time to watch her get up and laugh as she danced to the music playing in the background, I thought she was beautiful. She had found her own happiness, amidst despair.

I met some pretty amazing people on the streets. Unlike me, they could not quit homelessness after 48 hours. They were not able to pick up their belongings, reach into their wallets, and take a taxi home. They did not get to shower or wash their clothes. They could not shut the door, turn out the lights, and climb under my pink sheets and blankets. They were left outside to sleep on the concrete, vulnerable, exposed, and ignored. They did not choose to be homeless, and I hope I will never really know how difficult it can be.

What I do know is that homelessness is a horrible situation. It is horrible after 24 hours, it is horrible after 48 hours, and I am guessing that it never really stops being horrible. No matter how many nice people and charities there are, no matter how appreciative I am of the people who helped me complete the Challenge, homelessness will always be horrible. We, as housed people, must do everything we can to eliminate homelessness and show the same compassion to those who helped and protected me on the streets.

One way you could help is by asking your family and friends to donate to the National Coalition for the Homeless, perhaps even through a fundraising page like mine. You might also consider hosting events for National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week 2013 (November 16-24) to raise awareness in your community. For more information, visit the NCH website.

No one should have to live the way that I did. Together we can end homelessness.

By Emily Kvalheim, NCH Intern and American University Class of 2015

As summer turns to fall and the weather starts to cool, are American hearts getting colder as well?

That’s the sad conclusion of a recent study by Princeton professor of psychology and public affairs Susan Fiske, who used neuroimaging to study test subjects’ reaction to images. She found, as the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported, that when shown photos of the homeless and the poor, “their brains responded as though the images depicted things and not humans.”

In fact, after a summer during which the nation was forced to once again confront its complex relationship with race in the wake of the George Zimmerman trial and controversial court rulings on voting rights and police searches, it may be some surprise that Fiske found anti-poverty feelings to be “the most negative prejudice people report” — even beyond racism.

Fiske, who has studied America’s attitudes toward poverty for more than a decade, was sadly unsurprised by the results of the study. She told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Americans “react to the poor with disgust.” One formerly homeless woman, now a counselor to others who are homeless, agreed, telling the newspaper, “You’re looked at like you’re trash. It’s like they think you want nothing out of life. Like you’re not still a person.”

Fiske says most people do not vocalize their contempt for the poor. But this lack of empathy eclipses charitable instincts, due to the perception that the poor do not deserve to be helped since they are somehow lesser than their more successful — or lucky — peers.

Years of widespread economic hardship exacerbate the problem. Yale psychology professor John Dovidio says prejudices against the poor get worse during hard times, as the belief that “if you work hard, you get more, and if you have less, you deserve less” is amplified by harder times for many.

New York Times columnist Charles Blow, writing about Fiske’s study, says this coldness has seeped into politics as well. While America once invited “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” Blow says too many elected representatives are “insular, cruel and uncaring,” blaming welfare “for creating poverty rather than for mitigating the impact of it.”

Blow notes a June NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that found that Americans believe the top cause of continuing poverty is “too much welfare that prevents initiative” — an attitude mirrored in the House passage one month later of a farm bill that leaves out the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program entirely, at a time when nearly 50 million of us depend on it.

But there is hope, in the attitudes of individuals if not the masses. As we wrote last month, Americans are still concerned about homelessness, even if the ongoing nature of the crisis keeps it from leading the evening news. A sizable majority opposes SNAP cuts, and one in four Americans say they know at least one person who is or has been homeless. It is easy to disdain a faceless other, but harder to condemn a personal acquaintance.

Adam Bruckner of Philadelphia’s Helping Hand Rescue Mission would agree. He told the Inquirer that his “brain would have lit up with his personal prejudices” in Fiske’s test if he had taken it years ago. What changed his mind?”

“Once I met the mom, and the homeless person, it changed me,” he said. “I saw the humanity inside.”

Image borrowed from Reston Mom: http://mattmorgan.typepad.com/reston_mom/we-care.html

In an era when each new tragedy appears on our Facebook feeds and smartphone screens within minutes, with donating to the victims as simple as texting a five-digit number, compassion fatigue is quick to set in. The caring public, genuinely interested in helping, faces a rush of ever-changing news — hurricanes and tsunamis, chemical plant disasters, refugee crises, and on and on. It is therefore understandable that ongoing crises like homelessness and hunger may slip off the radar.

But Americans are still concerned about homelessness. A Gallup poll from March of this year found that 43% of us “personally worry about” homelessness and hunger a “great deal,” and 32% a “fair amount.” That’s a full 75% of the public. Just 25% of respondents said they worry about these issues “a little” or “not at all.”

This concern persists even with the budget deficit and the sequester at the top of Washington’s agenda. A Hart Research Associates poll this spring on behalf of the Food Research and Action Center found major resistance to cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Seven out of 10 respondents said cutting SNAP is the wrong way to reduce the deficit.

Some of this concern may be because homelessness is closer to the average American than often thought. A 2011 poll found that one in four Americans personally know someone who is homeless, with 35% of African-Americans and 32% of respondents between the ages of 18-29 having a homeless acquaintance.

In a statewide poll in Michigan in 2010, 47% of respondents said “homelessness and the risk of homelessness is a serious problem in my community,” and 71% said “being homeless or at risk of becoming homeless could happen to anyone.” In a survey conducted in central Florida a year earlier, 55% of respondents said homelessness was a “major problem.”

That Florida poll says a lot about how we view the homeless. Clear majorities said most homeless people possess “good job skills” (59%) and that “it is hard for homeless people to be safe and free from harm” (79%). Tellingly, three out of five respondents said homeless people can generally not “be identified by appearance alone,” while four out of five said it was not true that “the homeless are more likely than others to commit violent crime” and that programs to aid the homeless “are too expensive.”

Paul Toro of Wayne State University told AlterNet that compassion fatigue about homelessness is largely limited to the media, which has lost interest in the homelessness crisis even though the public has not. But in a face-to-face encounter, things are still different. Paul Boden of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, who was homeless for several years, said, “The closer that poverty is to the face of people that aren’t in poverty, the uglier it is. And the unfortunate part is that often gets manifested as the person is ugly — not the poverty is ugly. And poverty is

ugly. It’s unpleasant. It doesn’t smell good.”

Summer is in full swing and our interns are hard at work! From co-coordinating our National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week to cataloging our in-house library, these students are actively learning and contributing to NCH’s work. Get to know our interns and what has driven them to stand against homelessness.

*****

Brian Brazeau
Senior, College of the Holy Cross
Political Science and Italian
“I have lived in the same city in Rhode Island for most of my life and never took the opportunity to witness the suffering of those around me. While I worked for my local congressman last summer, I began to hear the stories of those impoverished in my local district, but still took very little direct action to help the situation. During my junior year, I studied abroad in Bologna, Italy, finally leaving my New England safety net for the first time. However, what I did not realize was that I would be directly witnessing those who were truly suffering from homelessness and poverty. Throughout the day, I would see people panhandling for money and at night, the same people would be sleeping under doorways and on public benches. It was sad to know that many had been suffering in Europe and, after having been in DC, to know that there are many suffering here in our own nation.

“Now as an intern for NCH, I hope to do all I can to help those who are suffering from homelessness through my work on the Homeless Bill of Rights. While it will not completely eradicate homelessness, I believe it will be the first step in gaining collective action to provide equal rights to all who are homeless.”

Elizabeth Jo Mason
2nd Year, University of Maryland College Park
Masters of Library and Information Science
“Living in Baltimore, Maryland most of my life, I have always been aware of the struggle of homeless people around me. I have passed by many people in the city who needed money or otherwise looked like they were in need of shelter. However, I did not think to do something about it until a friend from high school was personally stricken with homelessness.

“I chose to become a Cataloging Intern at NCH because it would allow me to become more directly involved in the process of educating homeless people and making a difference in their lives while gaining more cataloging experience for my Masters of Library and Information Science degree.”

Keith Meyer
Junior, Allegheny College
Political Science and Philosophy
“I have always felt inspired to engage with the world through a more objective standpoint than merely my own. I had overlooked the perspectives and lives of those experiencing homelessness for too long, which is an issue that remains discrete if existent at all in my small, rural hometown. The internship offers a unique way to engage with this and also interact with our country’s political framework as a basis for institutional change.”

Sylvia Precht-Rodriguez
Junior, Vanderbilt University
Political Science
“Active citizenship includes addressing the inescapable and mounting issue of homelessness in our nation. This lesson I have learned from my upbringing in Brooklyn, New York and teachings at Vanderbilt University. This summer I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by the staff of the National Coalition for the Homeless who are dedicating years of their lives to alleviating the conditions of those who do not have homes. My role as a Research Fellow, and the work to publish the 2012 Hate Crimes Report Against the Homeless, will hopefully advance their efforts of which I am just beginning to understand. I am learning and I am being humbled by my time here.”

On June 24, Baltimore’s Faces of Homelessness Speakers’ Bureau held a first-of-its-kind speaking engagement by Bureau members who shared their perspectives and experiences of homelessness with members of the City Council, area service providers, and other invited guests (including Michael Stoops and Brian Parks of the National Coalition for the Homeless).

Earlier this year, many members of the Bureau were involved in organizing efforts to stop the city from forcibly removing a community from an encampment under the Jones Falls Expressway in downtown Baltimore. While advocates were not able to stop the City from closing down the encampment, they successfully drew attention to the injustice of closing down an encampment without providing any place for campers to go. City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke called a hearing to revisit commitments five years in to the city’s “Journey Home” 10-year plan to end homelessness.

Comments made at the hearing indicated misconceptions about the causes and experience of homelessness. A University of Maryland Social Work Intern who was involved in the organizing efforts around the encampment began reaching out to Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke about organizing discussion with members of the Speakers’ Bureau.

The Baltimore Speakers’ Bureau at a recent event.

Many emails and several months later, the Speakers’ Bureau finally set a date to meet with City Council in late June and dove into preparing for this very important speaking engagement. The Bureau aimed to keep the discussion focused on solutions and opportunities for collaboration and hoped that City Council members would walk away with an understanding that while there are a myriad of individual circumstances that contribute to a person losing their home, underlying causes of homelessness all relate to poverty, lack of affordable housing and insufficient health care.

Members outlined goals for the meeting through an agenda that included an introduction on the common misconceptions and stereotypes held about people experiencing homelessness, personal stories from Speakers Bob Jankowiack, Bonnie Lane, and Damien Haussling, as well as a roundtable discussion on pressing issues facing the homeless community. Faces of Homelessness Speaker Tony Simmons who moderated the presentation challenged the audience to think about how themes emerging from Speakers’ stories can point us toward solutions.

The Baltimore Bureau was thrilled by the level of engagement of Council Members during the discussion. Speakers’ Bureau members and advocates from the homeless community were also present to weigh in on the roundtable discussion which focused on changing perspectives of homelessness and an upcoming shelter transition facing the community.

What made this event so important was that for the first time, the real experts on homelessness—those with lived experience—led elected officials and leaders of the service provider community in a discussion on the state of homelessness in Baltimore. Speakers demonstrated the importance of partnering with individuals that have experienced homelessness in the struggle to end it.

The event captured the essence of a favorite poem of mine by Julia Dinsmore, a poet and activist for social justice from Minneapolis (my hometown):

Take another look, don’t go away. For I am not the problem, but the solution. And… my name is not ‘Those People.’

By Vanessa Borotz
NCH AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer

Read more about what the Baltimore Speakers’ Bureau is up to: http://citypaper.com/arts/stage/i-am-i-said-1.1517758

U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) and U.S. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) recently presented congressional recognitions congratulating the National Coalition for the Homeless on its 30th Anniversary, commending NCH for its accomplishments in the struggle to end homelessness.

NCH began with activists’ pursuit of the right of people experiencing homelessness to have shelter and affordable housing, and has developed into an advocacy organization at the forefront of implementing policies to prevent and end homelessness. Our 30th Anniversary is a period of reflection, a time to honor the past and build hope for the future through effective and impactful education, advocacy, programs and service.

NCH inspired descriptions from Sen. Cardin like “an outstanding organization,” and one that commits to “selfless striving to end homelessness.” These remarks welcome a glance at actions that helped create this legacy, like ensuring that those who have experienced homelessness remain an integral part of advocacy efforts, especially through the Faces of Homelessness Speakers’ Bureau. Rep. Johnson acknowledged that NCH “has made tremendous gains since its inception,” which keys into our successes in awareness, philanthropy, advocacy and service related to homelessness over its thirty-year history. Sen. Cardin pointed to NCH’s shaping of housing policy for the economically deprived, and how it “spearheaded advocacy for the Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Statistics Act,” which remains a substantial move toward preserving the civil rights of those experiencing homelessness.

This recognition highlights not only the organization’s tremendous bounds over its three-decade history, but also a needed positive relationship between NCH and members of Congress. Both Rep. Johnson and Sen. Cardin realize the importance of introducing policies to end homelessness and deserve their own praise for efforts that demonstrate legal strides towards ending homelessness.

Rep. Johnson was a co-founder and currently co-chairs the Congressional Caucus on Homelessness, and recently conducted a congressional awareness briefing on family homelessness in America. She also introduced the Violence Against the Homeless Accountability Act of 2013, which pushes for the Department of Justice to include uniform crime stats concerning hate crimes against homeless individuals.

Sen. Cardin has also expressed support for protecting people experiencing homelessness from violence, introducing a bill in the previous session of Congress to quantify hate crimes against people experiencing homelessness (Hate Crimes Against the Homeless Statistics Act), making an effort to include NCH’s own documentation of hate crimes against the homeless, and conducting the first ever Senate hearing on violence against the homeless. Both Sen. Cardin and Rep. Johnson have headed a congressional push to end homelessness, which includes providing homeless veterans with homes, and revitalizing housing in and bringing jobs to disenfranchised neighborhoods.

These initiatives mark a partnership between NCH and Congressional members that has been critical in the coalition’s epoch of successful advocacy. Congress’s willingness to pursue valued policies gives organizations like NCH needed allies, voices that offer legislative support to the priorities that will bring an end to homelessness. In accepting deserved praise on its 30th Anniversary for years of accomplishments on the path toward ending homelessness like promoting the Bring America Home Act, NCH equally acknowledges and thanks Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) for their efforts.

Read Senator Cardin and Representative Johnson‘s full recognition declarations.

Post by Keith Meyer, NCH Awareness & Advocacy Fellow, Rising Junior at Allegheny College

Today the Congressional Caucus on Homelessness and Senator Patty Murray held a briefing on Homelessness in America: Experiences & Solutions in the 113th Congress. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson and staffers from the offices of Senator Patty Murray and Rep. Alcee Hastings kicked off the event with remarks stating the Congresspersons’ commitment to spreading awareness of homelessness among current Congressional members. The hearing room in the new Capitol Visitors Center was filled to capacity with interested Congressional staffers and advocates!

Carmela DeCandia, Director of the National Center on Family Homelessness, started off the speakers by giving statistics on family and child homelessness. Those of us who work in homeless advocacy are familiar with this numbers, but they are still quite startling: around 1.6 million children will experience homelessness this year – for the first year ever the Department of Education found more than a million students did not have stable housing! The impact that this lack of stable housing has on children is also quite startling – 50% of children who experience homelessness will also experience depression or anxiety, and will have below average test scores.

The next speaker to share his testimony was Devin Johnson, a High School student from Prince George’s County in Maryland. Devin related his experience with homelessness, which started when both of his parents were laid off from jobs at a restaurant chain. Over the years, Devin lived with family members, in shelters and outdoors in tents, moving constantly with his family and having to change schools often. He related many of the challenges homeless families and children often face, losing all belongings, not getting along with family, and having difficulty dealing with school. Devin’s testimony was critical in showing the audience the face of the human struggle of homelessness, but also how the human spirit can persevere through obstacles. As he put it, “It feels so good to say you finally made it after it’s been a hard long road…anything is possible.”

Here is a shot after the hearing with NCH Staff Michael Stoops, Neil Donovan, and Megan Hustings, taken by Je’Lissa Fowler

Also providing some personal testimony, but from an advocate’s perspective, was Brian Carome, the Executive Director of Street Sense, Washington, DC’s Street Newspaper. Mr. Carome shared his deep personal outrage that homelessness has become an accepted as a part of our daily existence. Many of us who were born in the 1970’s or later have never known a time without homelessness. But this current epoch of homelessness was not always the norm, federal housing and welfare programs did at one time succeed in creating a stable home environment for most Americans. Brian stated that homelessness not only wreaks havoc on the American Family, but that it also greatly decreases a person’s life expectancy. He became choked up when remembering a friend who died while homeless, at the age of 37, a death that could have been prevented with greater access to housing and healthcare.

Maria Foscarinis of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty rounded out the panel of speakers by bringing the previous testimony to bear on current policy issues. She declared, “homelessness is not a disease…we know how to end it!” Maria described how the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act provides educational supports for children and families experiencing homelessness, but not all local programs have the resources to meet needs. She applauded the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing program from the Recovery Act of 2009 as housing over one million families, though this short term program is now over. Maria stressed that there is too little funding for the solutions that are working across the country, and that the cost of doing nothing far outweighs the cost of making lasting housing solutions.

At the beginning of the briefing, Sarah Bolton, Senior Policy and Budget Advisor to Senator Patty Murray pointed out that the elephant in the room was sequestration, and its impact on Federal programs. Sequestration has already caused decreased funding for housing vouchers, and as it was put in the briefing, the cutting of funding for housing vouchers is one of the most effectively ways to drastically increase family homelessness. All of the testimony given at the briefing sends a strong message to Congress: start doing more to help house American families!

National Campaign for Youth Shelter

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