Exclusive Insight: Donald Whitehead Delivers a Crucial Message in Our Latest Newsletter

I am entering my third year in my second tenure as Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, and I have great optimism. 

My optimism is driven by the reality that the rest of the advocacy world and the federal agencies have finally caught up with NCH’s philosophy of involving people with lived experience at all levels. We have witnessed a transformation at all levels to an imperfect inclusiveness that holds great potential for a more efficient and effective service delivery system.

I am also profoundly moved by the advocacy in local communities to push back against a well-organized and well-funded group of lobbyists traveling the country spreading harmful misinformation using hedge fund dollars. The Cicero Institute is circulating model legislation to force people experiencing homelessness into jails and institutions. Study after study and voluminous research has disproved the theory that incarceration or forced institutionalization has any benefit for people experiencing homelessness. In fact, research on homelessness indicates that incarceration has multiple negative impacts.

Conversely, and as we experience a cold snap across the country, I am confronted with the harsh realities that people experiencing homelessness face daily. The headlines are nearly surreal. 

The headlines in my news feed tell of a serial killer targeting people forced to live outdoors due to unregulated housing increases in Los Angeles. I have visited Skid Row multiple times, leaving with sadness and urgency. 

In the same news feed, a community in Phoenix applauds the raiding of an encampment of 800 people. All 800 had been removed from the community’s safety to only God knows where. In my experience, only a handful are housed at the end of the day, and most are pushed to parts unknown.  

People should be able to live in safe, stable housing, not parks, cars, or abandoned buildings.  

For decades, we have waited for the market to fix our severe lack of affordable housing to no avail. We have begged, pleaded, and educated elected officials to exhaustion. Our mission to end homelessness can sometimes appear intractable.

But homelessness in the United States is not inevitable, or intractable, or hopeless. I fundamentally believe that for a full restoration of justice for marginalized people, we must demand it.  

I believe the time is right for Direct Action. The homeless advocacy movement has been silent since the creation of McKinney Vento. People experiencing homelessness have relinquished leadership to providers, many of whom have compassion and good intentions but are beholden to funders, like HUD. People with lived experience have been exploited, tokenized, and devoid of any genuine voice in their own lives. 

We must organize a force led by people with lived experience that demands housing justice, economic justice, and civil and racial justice.

We often hear nothing for us without us. This is a clever statement but hollow without a demand for this direction. We demand to be creators and not evaluators, and our expertise will be compensated.

This kind of organizing is not new. It has changed the course of history multiple times in multiple places worldwide, from American chattel Slavery to the abolishment of apartheid in South Africa. The intractable has been possible and then invisible.  

I hope in reading this; you are overwhelmed with the fierce urgency of now that not one more person must die in the isolation of the sea of despair called homelessness. I know that many have moved on, not willing to relive the trauma of homelessness. However, we need your voice, your story, your triumph. 

We need people to understand that your situation was not your destiny and that even though life dealt you a bad hand, you were satisfied. We need you to join the Bring America Home Now Campaign. We cannot afford to wait; people are dying everywhere in the richest countries in the world.

Authored by Donald Whitehead, Executive Director of NCH (National Coalition for the Homeless).

 

Every person deserves to live without worrying whether they’ll have food on their plate or a roof over their head. Too many who have housing are forced to make hard choices between paying for food, housing, and other critical expenses. During Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week 2022, November 12-20, we are provided another opportunity as a society to identify resources and share knowledge to end hunger and homelessness.

As a partnership project between the National Coalition For The Homeless and the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness, Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week invites people across the country to join together to help people in immediate need, while also supporting long-term solutions. Individuals, groups and organizations are asked to use the week to volunteer, donate, and educate about hunger, homelessness and their emerging issues.

To kick off Hunger and Homelessness Week 2022, the National Coalition For The Homeless will be hosting its Lived Experience Leadership Summit, a virtual event on Saturday November 12, 2022. You can find out more about the event and register here.

Flyer announcing Homeless Leadership Summit November 12, 2022

To learn more about community events, activities, how to help across the country, and to register your event visit HHWEEK.ORG. Once you register you are invited to participate in the partners Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week: Media & Social Media Training to support and promote your event, Thursday November 10, 4pm-5pm EST. Click to join this training.

November 13 to November 21 is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week

The National Coalition for the Homeless has a series of  events that you can participate in to better understand  homelessness in America.  

  1. Sign up to hear a presentation by one of  our trained formerly homeless speakers  either virtually or in the DC area with a vaccinated speaker. Sign up here
  2. NCH will release a series of videos on  our YouTube page beginning on Nov 15 as  part of H & H Week at 9 a.m. in the areas of  housing, income, racial equity, health care,  education, and civil rights. Each video will  be around a half hour and can be used to  guide a class discussion. They will be on  our YouTube channel.  
  3. Your group can collect items and put them in backpacks for a local Coalition to distribute to those without housing. NCH can provide you a good list of essential items needed and will connect you with a local partner to make the exchange in November or December. Contact Brian Davis @ bdavis@nationalhomeless.org.

Updated 3/10/2020

With any public health or natural disaster emergency, those who are unhoused are often more at risk for poor health outcomes or other trauma. We understand that spread of communicable disease is much easier without adequate access to hygiene facilities or a safe home, so we wanted to share a few resources for those experiencing homelessness or service providers. 

The current outbreak of the novel corona virus that started in China spreads much the same way as the flu, through person to person contact, especially through droplets in the air produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Symptoms can include: fever, cough and shortness of breath.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) believes at this time that symptoms of COVID-19 may appear in as few as 2 days or as long as 14 days after exposure. Most infections in healthy children and adults are mild, the greatest danger is with those who have health conditions that limit the capacity of one’s immune system.

While there are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection in someone experiencing homelessness in the U.S., we are concerned that people who already lack ready access to hygiene facilities, a safe home and in many cases, adequate health care, will be especially vulnerable to complications from the spread of the virus. To prevent spread of the virus, the CDC recommends washing your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing. If soap and water are not readily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol. Always wash hands with soap and water if hands are visibly dirty. 

But what if you don’t have anywhere to wash your hands, or a home to stay away from crowds?
 Read: What if you can’t stay home?

Our recommendations:

  • More broadly realize that everyone who may be experiencing homelessness would not be in as great a risk of poor health outcomes, or spread of COVID-19, if they had access to safe, decent, affordable and accessible housing. We still have a lot of work to do to address the underlying income inequality and lack of low-cost housing that has perpetuated homelessness for decades.
  • Ensure that national, state and community-level public health/pandemic planning and response includes the homeless population and homeless service agencies.
  • Cities should provide hygiene facilities (port-a-potties, hand-washing stations) and trash pickup for residents of encampments – during and after any pandemic has passed.
  • There should be a moratorium on encampment sweeps that displace already displaced households and that often cause the loss of personal property that includes medication and other life-sustaining items.
  • All tests, treatment and quarantine locations should be offered without cost for all members of the community – housed or not, with or without health insurance.
  • Each community should identify space that those who do not have a permanent home can access in case of quarantine. Any costs should come out of community-level public health resources.
  • Federally, we would discourage homeless dollars being used to provide quarantine, testing or treatment. Homeless services are already woefully underfunded, and widespread homelessness was ALREADY a public health emergency!
  • Finally, we are concerned for the safety of unhoused folks who may be discharged from medical care to make room for COVID-19 treatment. This has happened in other emergency settings.  

If you are:

  • Experiencing symptoms? Please go to your nearest hospital or healthcare facility. Click here to find your closes Healthcare for the Homeless clinic. 
  • A service agency administering to vulnerable folks? Click here for CDC Posters to post in public areas about the spread of COVID-19, and see the additional resources below. 
  • An outreach worker or concerned citizen, consider stocking up on bottles of hand sanitizer or wipes to hand out to folks staying in encampments or other outdoor locations. 

Resources:

In what appears to be an escalation on the White House’s war on the homeless, rather than a righteous war on homelessness, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released an unsigned report this week on “The State of Homelessness in America” that is on its face absurd, and uses faulty logic, statistics and policy prescriptions to give cover to the President’s recently stated desire to crack down on the homeless by criminalizing and warehousing people experiencing homelessness – not to help end their misery, but to alleviate the impact of street homelessness on real estate investors and businesses.

The report claims that homelessness is caused by 1) the higher costs of housing due to overregulation of housing markets, 2) permissive policies increasing the “tolerability of sleeping on the streets”, 3) the supply of homeless shelters, and 4) the ineffectiveness of previous federal policies in reducing homelessness.  Finally, in heralds the Trump Administration’s actions to reduce Homelessness without offering any evidence to support the impact of such actions on the reductions of homelessness.

“This report seemingly attempts to give cover to the President’s recent attacks on cities experiencing the crisis of increased homelessness without taking responsibility for the Administration’s own actions which undercut state and local efforts to end homelessness through a combination of housing and health care”, said John Parvensky, Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.  “The report purports to be an economic analysis of homeless, but instead uses misleading statistics, faulty analysis and spurious conclusions to blame homelessness on those experiencing it, rather than on failure of the housing market and government policy to provide real solutions at the scale necessary to truly end homelessness.”

The report’s simplistic analysis of the effect of regulations on the cost of housing ends with the startling conclusion that a “1 percent reduction rental home prices reduces the rate of homelessness by 1%.”  While the regulatory environment may have a marginal impact of the cost of building housing, the actual cost of rental housing is dictated by the laws of supply and demand (something you would think a council of economic advisors would understand).  The cities with the highest rates of homelessness also have the greatest shortage of affordable housing with rents low enough for those experiencing homelessness to afford. 

When there is a shortage of housing units, owners will set the rents as high as the market will allow, which puts the cost far above what people experiencing homelessness can afford.  The report itself acknowledges that the mean incomes of people experiencing homelessness is about one-half of the poverty level – which equates to $6,445 for a single individual and $12,375 for a family of four.  Yet the 2019 fair market rent in Los Angeles is $1,158 for an efficiency apartment and $2,401 for a three bedroom apartment.  Thus, the average homeless persons in Los Angeles would need spend twice their income to rent an average apartment.  A 1% reduction in rent prices would have no impact on reducing homelessness.  Even a 50% reduction in rent due to deregulation (which even the report’s authors don’t suggest is possible) would mean that the average homeless person would still need to spend all of their income for an apartment.   The solution to high rents is not deregulation, but increased governmental subsidies to bring those rents within the reach of all Americans.

The report’s contention that tolerating people living on the streets increases homelessness is equally absurd.  Talk to any person living on the streets of Skid Row or in any city and you will discover that it is the lack of available, accessible and affordable alternatives that drive people to find refuge on the streets, not tolerance of such refuge.  Alternatively, criminalizing homelessness through camping bans, sweeps, and other means does not reduce homelessness – it only moves people from one place to another and makes it more difficult for outreach workers to engage and connect these people to the limited housing options that may be available to them.

Similarly, the report’s claim that the supply of shelter increases homelessness is laughable.  Building shelters, which are in already in short supply in most communities, no more increases homelessness than building hospitals increases those who are sick.  While building quality shelter may be one effective strategy of reducing street homelessness by providing realistic alternatives to those sleeping on the streets, few people would choose shelter over safe and affordable housing.

Fourth, the report’s critique of previous federal policies does raise serious questions about whether HUD’s contention that homelessness is actually declining in most communities is accurate due to methodological problems and changes in definitions.  However, it’s contention that evidence-based practices of “housing first” and permanent supportive housing are ineffective in reducing homeless is flawed.  Those interventions are designed to end the homelessness of those who have access to such housing, and numerous studies have documented that these approaches do in fact end homeless for 90% of those housed through these approaches.  The problem isn’t the policy intervention.  The problem is that the Federal government has never funded these interventions to the level needed to dramatically reduce homelessness nationwide.

The growth of mass homelessness in our cities did not occur overnight.  It is the result of nearly four decades of federal budget cuts to affordable and public housing programs under both Republican and Democratic administrations beginning in the 1980s.  Indeed, the Administration’s recent budget proposals have called for reductions in funding for strategies that work, not increasing funding to the level needed to truly end homelessness.

This year, HUD provided only $415 million in homeless assistance grants to California, a paltry sum compared to the number of people experiencing homelessness in that state.  Furthermore, only 4.5% of this funding was available to fund new projects to house those currently on the streets or in shelters – the remaining funding was needed just to keep those individuals previously housed through federal support from losing their housing.

Meanwhile, California has recently committed $1 billion of new state funding, and Los Angeles voters approved two $2 billion bonds to address homelessness.

If the Trump administration was serious about ending homelessness in California and across our nation, it would call for a massive new investment of funding for homeless assistance and affordable housing – not increased efforts to criminalize homelessness or warehouse those currently on the streets.

We need to demand that the President and Congress significantly increase its funding for homeless assistance programs — to not only continue to house those previously housed who need continued assistance to remain housed, but also to provide new housing those currently living on the streets.  Incremental increases are not sufficient.  

They must also restore affordable housing funding across the board to the levels necessary so that those experiencing homelessness are not continually competing for limited housing with those living at risk of homelessness, on fixed incomes, or working at minimum wage jobs. 

We know how to end homelessness through a combination of affordable housing, health care, and social supports.  Criminalization and warehousing of the homeless are not the answers.

 

Resentment and fear of the homeless is nothing new. Vagrancy was criminalized in England four centuries before the American Revolution; in 1547, England began branding those arrested for vagrancy with a “V” for “vagabond”. Those arrested a second time could be executed.

Attitudes have shifted over time, as has terminology. While “bum” is a derogatory term for someone without a fixed residence and regular employment, terms like “hobo” and “tramp” conjure up nostalgia that belies the difficulty in their wandering lifestyles.

Copied from the Hobo Times' Hobo Travel Guide by Bobb Hopkins

Copied from the Hobo Times’ Hobo Travel Guide by Bobb Hopkins

“Hoboes” emerged in the U.S. after the Civil War, when many men were out of work and their families displaced. The term emerged in the American West around 1890, though its origins are hazy. Some say it was an abbreviation of “homeward bound” or “homeless boy”; author Bill Bryson wrote in his 1998 book “Made in America” that it may have come from “Ho, beau!”, a railroad greeting.

“Tramps” also came out of the Civil War era, with the term, originally from England referring to “tramping about”, becoming Americanized as a term for a long war march. While the term came into use around the same time as “hobo”, they means different things. Depression-era writer H. L. Mencken wrote, “Tramps and hobos are commonly lumped together, but see themselves as sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo is simply a migratory laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but sooner or later he returns to work. A tramp never works if it can be avoided; he simply travels.”

After their post-Civil War emergence, hoboes and tramps became prominent again during the Great Depression. While we may today think of a hobo as a laid-back free spirit riding the rails with a bindle for a pillow, the mass migration of these laborers was born of destitution and desperation, akin to the life of the Joads portrayed in John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”.

In a 2003 interview, Todd DePastino, author of “Citizen Hobo: How a Century of Homelessness Shaped America”, said, “One famous quip had it that the hobo works and wanders, the tramp drinks and wanders, and the bum just drinks. More accurately the tramp, the hobo, and the bum represent three historical stages of American homelessness. … Hoboes were by and large more organized, militant, independent, and political than [tramps]. The widespread use of the word ‘bum’ after World War II signals the end of this colorful subculture of transient labor.”

The terms “homeless” and “homelessness” came into lexicon in the 1970’s and 1980’s, when modern homelessness began to appear. Terminology used to denote persons living outdoors or in inadequate or inappropriate dwellings continues to evolve, as many in the service sector now choose to say “people experiencing homelessness” or “persons with lived experience.” Whatever the terminology, no one should have to experience homelessness, especially in a country as wealthy as the United States.

hobo poem and other books

**Special thanks to Michael Stoops for helping us to remember our history**

Art thanks to WRAP and artist Art Hazelwood

Art thanks to WRAP and artist Art Hazelwood

Modern homelessness, as we know it today, began in the 1970’s. During the Reagan Administration, affordable housing dollars were cut but almost 75%, leading directly to poor working families experiencing homelessness at alarming rates. Folks began to organize in the 1980’s, this was when our organization was formed. At the same time, a group called the National Union of the Homeless (NUH) developed out of the first resident-run shelter in Philadelphia.

Read more about the NUH:

“In the late 1970s and early 1980s the United States economy underwent a series of changes that led to a sharp rise in homelessness. Homelessness was no longer characterized by down and out individuals living on skid rows. For the first time in US history, families were increasingly becoming homeless, and the shelter system was created to house them.

Out of this common experience of dislocation and dispossession grew a national organization of homeless people that mobilized thousands throughout the US in the 1980s and 1990s. At its height, the National Union of the Homeless (NUH) had over 20 local chapters and 15,000 members in cities across the US.

Most importantly, it implemented a model of organizing involving the poor and homeless thinking for themselves, speaking for themselves, fighting for themselves and producing from their ranks capable and creative leaders. This was contrary to the prevailing stereotypes and misconceptions about homelessness. Almost twenty years after the decline of the NUH, its history offers important lessons for building a movement to end poverty today, in the midst of continuing concentration of wealth among a few and expanding poverty for many.”
(Copied from The National Union of the Homeless: A Brief History, Published July 2011, https://homelessunion.wdfiles.com/local–files/curriculum/BriefHistoryPamphlet.pdf)

The NUH was active between 1985 and 1993. During this time, NUH mounted several campaigns, first aimed at overcoming stereotypes of who was homeless, then later focused on appropriating housing for its members. Their actions used slogans like “Homes and Jobs: Not Death in the Streets” and “Homeless Not Helpless.” They mounted civil disobedience like the Tompkins Square Tent City (detailed in Tent City Blues, an article in the Sept-Oct 1990 issue of Mother Jones), a national series of housing takeovers (watch in the documentary, The Takeover, from 1990), and the Union organized and participated in the Housing Now March along with the National Coalition for the Homeless and several others.

We encourage anyone reading this to learn more about where our collective work has come from by checking out the above links, and also visiting the Homeless Union History Project and the National Union of the Homeless Wikipideia page.

2020 Update: The Union is back

 

We have seen so many movements and actions since the 2016 elections – which means our communities want social and economic justice! We recently recorded a video of solidarity with the March for Our Lives and #NeverAgain campaign for gun reform. We are also partnering with the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival on public actions working to fight the root causes of homelessness.

Here is what you can do this Spring:

Our Homes, Our Voices

We hope that you will join us in taking part in the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Our Homes Our Voices week of action, May 1-8, 2018. Learn more about the event, and how to get involved here.

Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

We also hope you will join us in joining the new Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. This is a ground up movement being led by faith leaders and people who are struggling with an economic and social system that only benefits the most wealthy among us. The campaign has just launched its list of demands, which outline
how the evils of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy and militarism are persistent, pervasive, and perpetuated by a distorted moral narrative that must be challenged.
 The campaign states,
We must stop attention violence and see the human and economic costs of inequality. We believe that when decent people see the faces and facts that the Souls of Poor Folk Audit presents, they will be moved deeply in their conscience to change things. When confronted with the undeniable truth of unconscionable cruelty to our fellow human beings, we must join the ranks of those who are determined not to rest until justice and equality are a reality for all.
Mother’s Day, May 13th, will kick off 40 days of nonviolent action, and we encourage you and your network to join the campaign and take part in changing “not just the narrative, but who is narrating” our national political agenda.

Public Education

Finally, we know one of our biggest hurdles to housing all of our neighbors is public perception and prejudice against both people of color and poor people. To this end, we have created shareable documents that we encourage you to print and distribute: PUBLIC NOTICE for class action lawsuit - DHOL 2018

  1. A list of demands for the American Dispossessed: Created by Denver Homeless Out Loud in support of the Right to Rest and presented as a public notice, it is meant to be posted outdoors in places where our neighbors are forced to live in encampments or on public land. Click here to download

  2. State of Homelessness 2018: A brief (3 pages) overview of why we are seeing increased visible homelessness in our communities, covering everything from housing to HUD funding to criminalization. Click here to download

Natural Disasters and Homelessness Fact Sheet 2009

Click here to view our Factsheet on Disasters and Homelessness

Extreme weather events are a very common cause of homelessness, especially when insurance and other rebuilding resources are limited. Many are still working to rebuild their lives from storms and other natural disasters that occurred years ago.

But as an outreach worker in Houston says, “help for the homeless, often hard to come by under normal circumstances, likely will be even more challenging in the storm’s aftermath.” Moreover, people living on fixed incomes, working poor families, and those who are homeless often do not have the resources to evacuate or even collect needed supplies.

The National Coalition for the Homeless urges all those suffering under extreme weather conditions, or sharing concern for those affected, to consider with assistance and compassion the position of families and individuals who are not able to get out of a storm’s path.

Consider the words of some homeless Houstonians (from this article):

“It’s just rain,” he said, echoing the words of others on the streets.

The camp’s unofficial leader is Stanley Unc, 56…He says even if conditions were worse here, many wouldn’t have blinked — they are toughened by lives lived outside. He said others can’t grasp what their lives are like each day, much less on a day when a Category 4 hurricane hits. “They know what it took them through and we went right in the middle of it,” he said.

Below are some resources for those who are in the path of Irma in Florida, and those affected by Harvey in Texas:

Broward County, Florida:

“Broward County residents who do not have a permanent home or place of safety to reside are especially vulnerable during emergencies, such as a hurricane. When a Hurricane Warning is announced, the Homeless Helpline 954-563-HELP (4357), provides information and referral for homeless services in Broward County, including assistance in finding shelter, support services, or programs for individuals or families who are homeless or on the verge of being homeless.

Additionally, when a hurricane warning is announced or a mandatory evacuation order is issued, Broward County Transit (BCT) buses will offer evacuation transportation from the assigned pick-up points to General Population shelters. Transportation will continue until sustained winds reach 39 miles per hour.

Pick-up Points for Persons Experiencing Homelessness

North Central South
100 West Atlantic Boulevard
Pompano Beach, Fl 33060

(South Side Parking Lot)

Salvation Army Lodge
1445 West Broward Blvd
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33312

954-524-6991

Corner of N. 21 Ave
& Lincoln St.
Hollywood, Fl 33020

(East of railroad tracks)

Corner of N. 21 Ave
& Sherman Street
Hollywood, Fl 33020

(East of railroad tracks)


What to Bring
: Homeless persons are allowed one suitcase, duffel bag or plastic bag of belongings at the shelter. Additional belongings may be left at the nearest feeding program pick-up point until the evacuation order is lifted.

For more information, call Homeless Helpline at 954-563-HELP (4357).​​​

Florida Keys/Monroe County, Florida:

The Monroe County Emergency Operations Center is now operational and the Emergency Information line is up and running for those who have questions about Hurricane Irma. The Emergency Information number is 1-800-955-5504.

Key West Transit will begin hurricane evacuation service at noon Thursday. Buses will be clearly marked “hurricane evacuation” on the destination boards. They will circulate throughout the city, picking up riders at regular bus stops. Riders will be transferred at the Transit Center on Stock Island, and the buses will proceed to the hurricane shelter at Florida International University, picking up riders along US 1.

Evacuees are asked to go to the nearest bus stop, or the Transit Center on College Road. Pickups will continue throughout the afternoon Thursday and resume at 6 a.m. on Friday. Weapons and alcohol are prohibited on the buses.

Regular bus service – Citywide, the Duval Loop and the Lower Keys Shuttle – will end at midnight Wednesday, September 6th.

Manatee County, Florida

Miami, Florida

Orlando, Florida

National Resources

Harvey Recovery Resources

 

The Longest Period of Growing Homelessness In the History of the United States
Many of us providing services in the early 1980’s to people experiencing homelessness warned our political leaders and faith community that if we didn’t make structural changes, we would be in the mess we are in today.

Yet in 2017 media and society continue to blame people for becoming homeless.

In reality, over 1/3 of our country is 1 to 3 paychecks away from not making rent or mortgage payments, and 50% of our American population has a mental health and/or chemical health issue.

If you have money, you have housing. If you don’t have money, you are at risk of homelessness, especially if you have any personal health issues!

We are all responsible for the moral and structural causes of homelessness in our country. Here are the ten primary reasons why people are becoming homeless today:

  1. Limited moral outcry to love and treat others as ourselves.
  2. Greed: me and my needs are more important than we the people and the common good
  3. Housing is treated as a commodity, not a basic need. In Minnesota, through our tax expenditure budget, we will subsidize primarily white homeowners over next biennium over $1.5 Billion (Mortgage interest, tax, capital gain write offs). We are fighting to just keep $30 Million to address the disparity in homeownership between white and non-white persons. We are the 3rd worst state in the country in this disparity.
  4. Lack of or no enforcement of our civil rights and fair housing laws – Disparities against minorities and across income levels continue to increase.
  5. Wages are not livable incomes (from jobs or public assistance). If you have money, no matter what other issues you have, you can get housing.
  6. Demolition of housing without replacement. Tax code change in 1986: Drove out of business our ma and pa landlords, complicated the housing development process, and required sophisticated and well-funded investors.
  7. Credit Expanded in 1970s – Buy now, pay later became the norm. Debt increases.
  8. Disinvestment in opportunities for people with limited resources in housing, jobs, social services, education, health care. Dismantling the mental health asylums without creating the promised community housing. We capped domestic program spending, and pitted them against each other while we built up war and defense budget tax breaks for wealthiest.  This began in the 1970s, expanded in the 1980s with President Reagan and a Democratic Congress, and has continued to NOW.
  9. Scams in the housing industry with little or no consequences for the perpetrators: our financial institutions, realtors, title companies. We have had over 150,000 foreclosures since 2007 in MN.
  10. To rent housing, a criminal, credit, and rental check is almost always completed. Anything on your record may keep you out of rental housing. Only a credit check is done when you buy a home and that is not done if you buy with cash.

Over the last 4 decades we have continued to experience the ongoing growth of homelessness as we fail to address the structural causes of homelessness. Homelessness is caused by our inequitable structural issues, not just people’s personal issues.

We must invest in equitable solutions, which include a balanced continuation of: Housing and Affordable Housing, Rental and Homeownership, the Common Sense Housing Investment Act HR948, livable incomes (wages and public assistance), accessible, affordable, culturally appropriate health care, human services, and transportation, excellent educational and job training opportunities, and assurance that everyone’s civil rights are respected,  protected, and enforced.

We need to decide:

  • Are we going to continue to blame people for being homeless and manage homelessness through a rapidly growing homeless services industry for another four decades,

or

  • Are we going to be responsible and live out our faith, assist those experiencing homelessness now,

AND 

make the structural changes needed to bring our community, state and nation home and live out our pledge to be One Nation, Under God, with Liberty and Justice For All!

 

By Sue Watlov Phillips
Founding member of National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH), Vice President NCH Board
Executive Director, MICAH (Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing)