Los Angeles California: Homelessness Capital of the United States Mortality Study

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Overview by Teresa Paterson, Intern Fall 2021

A recent study published in the American Journal of Public Health shows that deaths among people experiencing homelessness (PEH) in Los Angeles County almost doubled from 2015 to 2019, increasing from 741 to 1,267 over the course of 5 years.

The study used Point-in-Time homeless counts (extremely flawed data, but all the public information that advocates have available) to obtain data on changes in numbers of PEH in the County, as well as additional demographic surveys to have a breakdown based on age, gender, and race/ethnicity. They then used medical examiner data in order to estimate general mortality trends among PEH as well as cause-specific mortality trends compared to the general LA County population.

Based on this data, the study found PEH had an almost 3 times higher risk of mortality compared to the general population of LA County. This disparity was even higher when looking at specific causes of death: PEH were 35 times more likely to die of drug overdoses; 15.3 times more likely to die of traffic injury; 14.3 times more likely to die of homicide, and 7.7 times more likely to die of suicide. Additionally, while the study found that White PEH had a higher mortality rate than Black PEH, they also stated that Black people accounted for 34% of homeless compared to 9% of the general population. The authors suggest that both the over-representation of Black people among PEH and their lower mortality rate compared to White PEH were likely a result of racism and discrimination – Black PEH were more likely to become homeless due to socioeconomic conditions tied to systemic racism while White PEH were more likely to accumulate a combination of mental, behavioral, and physical conditions over time before becoming homeless.

Having a better understanding of mortality trends among PEH is crucial for governments to create and implement more effective public health policies that address the dangers of homelessness. LA County used the results of this study to inform the establishment of a homeless mortality prevention initiative. The study demonstrated that drug overdoses increased by 69% from 2015-2019, becoming the leading cause of death in 2017. Given the increased risk of drug overdoses, the initiative decided to prioritize policies that improved substance use disorder services and increased interim and permanent housing options for people receiving treatment for substance use disorder.

If governments want their policies to truly address the needs of PEH in their community and to prevent deaths, they must have accurate data and knowledge of the dangers PEH face as a result of homelessness. Homelessness is a matter of life or death; this study drives home the serious health impacts homelessness has on PEH and the urgency for governments to take immediate action to end homelessness.

The National Coalition for the Homeless officially opened the Cleveland Regional Field office on November 23 with a ribbon cutting and a forum on racial equity.  There was some confusion among local advocates about this office, and we wanted to clarify our goals and objectives since this is the first of five regional sites we intend to open. 

It is a natural fit for NCH to open our first office in Cleveland for a number of reasons.  The first is our long history of working with the local homeless Coalition and other advocacy groups in the area including the closed Cleveland Tenants Organization. NCH has strong ties to Ohio advocates across the state, including Bill Faith of COHHIO and Donald Whitehead (when he was in Cincinnati) both serving as Board Presidents. Currently, Cincinnati Coalition Director, Josh Springs is a board member, and Brian Davis, now on staff at NCH, served as Board Vice President when he was the local director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless.  If we were going to pick one natural fit for NCH it would be either Cincinnati or Cleveland.  

Cleveland has a long history of creative and effective advocacy that were used as models for other communities in the struggle to reduce the number of homeless people. The Key vs. City of Cleveland federal court decision is one of the only federal lawsuits still in existence that protects those who stay outside from harassment by the police for sitting, sleeping, lying, or eating on the sidewalk.  The work protecting those who stayed outside during the 2016 Republican National Convention is used by other cities today when a special event comes to their town. The opening of the waiting list at CMHA to those experiencing homelessness and the attempts to deconcentrate poverty while preserving the overall number of public housing units was used by other cities as a model. Many cities are pushing for a Justice Department meeting with groups of homeless individuals while negotiating a consent decree with the police as Cleveland and Cincinnati both started years ago. The work with the local ACLU on various homeless issues in both Akron and Cleveland including the overturning of panhandling legislation has always been impressive. There are only 15 similar homeless led organizations like the Homeless Congress—a local group of homeless people who meet every month to push an advocacy agenda. One of the first six street newspapers in the country was started in Cleveland and continues to this day.  The outreach work of the local Coalition and getting individuals into hotels during the pandemic was impressive and life sustaining.  

In the long history of moving homeless legislation in Congress, Ohio has been critical to that success with Representatives like Dennis Kucinich, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Senator Sherrod Brown and the current Secretary of HUD, Marcia Fudge, all championing the rights of people who experience homelessness. This office will be a regional office to attempt to bring current advocates together from throughout the region, to support and build stronger networks in places like Akron, Toledo and Dayton. Cleveland has a strong local commitment toward advocacy with the Poor People’s Campaign, the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, NAACP Cleveland Branch, Organize Ohio, the Homeless Congress, and the ACLU that we will continue to enhance their work.  We may be able to offer local groups input on national policies or figure out ways to influence change at the national level that benefits Cleveland, but our role will never duplicate or supplant local advocacy.  There is plenty of work to do locally with a continued rise in homelessness and the NCH field office intends to support local efforts already in place.  

The overarching goal of the regional offices is to mobilize people who experienced homeless and those currently experiencing homelessness to add their voices to an effort to create the structural changes necessary to end homeless.  Too often efforts to end homelessness fail because those efforts are conducted in silos.  The goal of Bring America Home Now is to raise the resources to the level of the needs of the people and not just to the level of need of the service sector.  There is far too much suffering for territorialism.  At NCH and through the BAHN campaign, it is our belief that the needs of the people must transcend the needs of the institutional interests.  

Cleveland has been among the top five cities for poverty for two decades now.  It is appropriate for NCH to have its first field office in one of the poorest cities in America, as so many living with low-incomes also struggle with housing stability.  The National Coalition began the process in December 2020 to open field offices, and we saw an opportunity when the previous director of NEOCH became available for our open position of Director of Grassroots Organizing.  Since we were all operating remotely, Brian Davis stayed in Cleveland to begin to make contacts out in the field.  He has regular contact with Coalitions throughout the United States especially in those communities where the rights of people who are unhoused are particularly under attack. NCH began identifying possible field sites in May 2021 with a plan for five regional sites in California, Texas or Atlanta, the Midwest, Florida and the Central Plains or Minnesota.  We announced these plans at our kickoff of the Bring America Home Now Campaign in June 2021, and promoted the idea on our website and in social media.  

Over the last year, Davis and NCH staff have been in discussion with the local Coalition and members of the Homeless Congress, collaborating on awareness events and NCH policy and organizing committees. Over the summer of 2021 NCH firmed up plans for a Cleveland regional office, reaching out to the local Coalition about collaborating. NCH staff have been meeting regularly with the leadership of the Homeless Congress, and Loh, a local advocate with homeless experience, has been on the agenda for, and participated in, several NCH online events. NCH will hope to meet with other local advocates to discuss our plans, including Organize Ohio and the local chapter of the NAACP.  We have made every effort to be transparent about our plans and goals. 

NCH’s field office in Cleveland is in no way meant to construct a new homeless advocacy organization or duplicate existing services and efforts.  We will be working with people who have experienced homelessness in the Cleveland area to setup an advisory group to provide input from those who are currently living without housing on federal policies with the CDC, HUD, and the Department of Justice. This is a natural step for a group founded on the principle of raising the voices of those without housing and being led by people who have experienced homelessness. We believe that those who have experienced homelessness have the expertise and knowledge of how we will ultimately end homelessness. We are excited to partner with advocates in Cleveland, and the larger region, to bring the ideas and direction of people who have been homeless into fruition, truly Bringing America Home and ending homelessness across the country.       

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.

By Kelvin Lassister, Income Policy Analyst

With 4.3 million workers electing to leave the workforce in August 2021, employees have taken advantage of the shortage of workers to leverage better pay and benefits. Others have taken advantage of unsafe work conditions to go on strike. The bottom line: the need to form unions is increasing, and becoming more important. 

Billion-dollar corporations like Amazon, and McDonald’s who can afford to pay a livable wage, refuse to listen to their workers. With a failed attempt to unionize their warehouse in Bessemer, AL, Amazon workers at the Staten Island, NY location filed a petition to unionize. Unsafe working conditions, better pay, and paid time off are the reasons for the actions taken against the world’s largest online retailer. 

There are several other companies that low wage workers should consider forming a union as well: Dollar General, and Family Dollar. Both cite not enough staff, and low pay not equivalent to the long work hours. Companies pay potential hires low wages based on their urgency to find employment. People deserve decent wages that allow them to pay for basic living expenses for their families!

According the National Relations Labor Board, companies can select a union with several different methods: 30% of workers must sign a petition, or sign cards, and a majority that vote for a union, the National Relations Labor Board will certify the union as a representative for collective bargaining. 

The American worker now has the chance to capitalize on an opportunity that may not come around again for quite some time. In the days, and times of wage increases for the wealthy, employees must get their fair share, and that begins with Unions and employment stability. 

Living Wage Week 2021

This week (November 15th-21st) is International Living Wage Week! Events are being held worldwide, and United for a Fair Economy is excited to partner with the National Living Wage Network and Living Wage for US to bring this to the United States.

Throughout living wage week, we want to encourage our community to join us in celebrating by lifting up living wages and taking action. We invite you to get involved in a few ways:

  • Sign the pledge to support living wage businesses this week.
  • Shout out your favorite living wage certified businesses on social media with the hashtag #livingwageweek2021
  • See what a living wage is in your community with MIT’s Living Wage Calculator

California has been facing a homelessness crisis for years now, but that crisis is reaching new  heights in nearly every major city. As of January 2020, 72% of those without housing in  California are unsheltered. Now more than ever, investment in affordable housing is needed to  help people get off the streets. Instead Kern County has released a “comprehensive plan” that  makes it illegal to be without housing and neglects to provide safe, secure and private places to  re-establish stability while we move out of the pandemic. A “sanctioned encampment” or a  congregate living shelter is not a substitute for affordable housing. By violently disrupting  people’s lives through encampment sweeps that evict them from their tents and communities,  you are only prolonging a person’s homelessness because they are repeatedly starting over. In  keeping with CDC recommendations, the National Coalition for the Homeless strongly opposes  sweeps and displacement during a pandemic. We support utilization of the hotel program as an  alternative to expanding shelter or segregating homeless people into a section of town not of  their choice. A real plan does not involve sweeps of those without housing; it does not force  people into unsafe shelters; and it does not create a parking lot program or other places not  suitable for human habitation as a response. By moving people out of sight, you are only  exacerbating the problem and you will find that homelessness will only increase within Kern  County. 

On November 9, 2021, Kern County will hold a public hearing to discuss and potentially adopt  an anti-camping ordinance. This ordinance would outlaw camping on public land and make it  illegal to store belongings in public areas. By passing this ordinance, Kern County would  criminalize homelessness through fines and citations. While administrative citations may seem  trivial, fines serve as one more obstacle to survival among many, punishing people experiencing  homelessness simply for not having a house. This is cruel and unconscionable. Why fine people  for simply trying to survive? In addition to penalizing unhoused persons, this ordinance would  lead to a cycle of evictions for people experiencing homelessness as the county sweeps  encampments. Imagine being forced to pack up all your belongings over and over again or risk  everything you own being thrown away. These sweeps violently disrupt people’s lives and leave  them worse than before. People have lost their tents, beds, ID, medication, important documents,  and more as a result of street sweeps. This theft and destruction of people’s property alienates an already marginalized community and makes it that much harder to live. Rather than helping  those without housing, sweeps will actively harm them.  

Sweeps don’t solve the problem of homelessness; they only serve to push people out of  “desirable” or popular areas in the county. Rather than help connect people to housing and  outreach services, sweeps are an attempt to make the problem of homelessness invisible. If you can’t see people experiencing homelessness, it is much easier to ignore their existence.  Additionally, as unhoused persons are repeatedly evicted, they often lose trust in services  providers or become increasingly difficult for outreach teams to locate and help.  

Where do you expect people to go when you outlaw camping? No one forced your other  taxpayers where to live or in what section of town they were allowed to reside, but this is the  proposed policy to those who lost their housing. And while it may appear logical to expect  people experiencing homelessness to just go into shelters if they want to avoid fines, this ignores  the many reasons why people camp instead – people don’t choose to live outdoors on a whim.  People in shelters often face violence, stolen belongings, and poor living conditions. Not to  mention the serious risks during the coronavirus pandemic where shelters can put people’s health  in jeopardy and increase the spread of the virus due to large numbers of people sharing space  indoors.  

While this anti-camping ordinance would have terrible consequences if passed, the county has  also announced they will invest $8.3 million to create outreach teams for the homeless, with a  particular focus on mental health. This commitment is crucial for helping people experiencing  homelessness and deserves recognition. However, tying this funding to the anti-camping ordinance risks destroying the program’s positive impacts and harming the very community the  county is trying to help. 

So what can Kern County do to end homelessness? First, it cannot and should not try to  criminalize its way out of homelessness by banning camping. Instead, the county should invest in  affordable housing and outreach that can connect people to necessary housing with wrap around  services. The County should work to prevent any evictions that lead to homelessness. The county  must not sweep encampments to “clean” the streets, rather they should provide services such as  public toilets, showers, and trash receptacles to address cleanliness issues without evicting  people and throwing away all their possessions. Finally, they should listen to those struggling  with housing about their needs and not just the home owners who want to hide the problem.  

Passing this anti-camping ordinance will not reduce the number of homeless people in Kern County. If the county wants to truly end homelessness, they must vote against adopting this ordinance and instead listen to people with lived experience of homelessness to identify alternative solutions. Have you thought about sitting down with those who stay outside and ask  what they need to move inside? The county’s investment into building affordable housing,  improving access to mental health professionals, and substance abuse treatment will help save lives. Don’t undermine this work by criminalizing and punishing the homeless community for trying to survive.  

 

NCH joined the National Homelessness Law Center, Legal Services of Greater Miami, and Southern Legal Counsel to send the following letter to the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice. 

We applaud the actions of DOJ to open an investigation into the Phoenix Police Department and we believe it is historic for the Attorney General to emphasize the  treatment of those without housing in announcing the investigation. As we told your staff, we  believe that the San Diego police are engaged in a much larger campaign to endanger the lives of  those without housing by throwing away personal possessions and displacing thousands of  unhoused individuals. Since our meeting, it has come to our attention that the City of Miami  Police are engaged in a systematic and coordinated effort to make homelessness disappear by  regular harassment of those without housing.  As you know the City of Miami was sued by homeless individuals in the 1980s in Pottinger vs.  City of Miami. There were settlement negotiations in the 1990s and an agreement was struck.  The activists and homeless individuals claimed that there were regular violation of the agreement  and eventually the court ended the oversight of the Pottinger settlement despite a great deal of  evidence that there was regular police harassment of homeless people in Miami. While we recognize that DOJ’s oversight of the City of Miami Police related to police shootings recently ended, we believe the pattern and practice of systemic engagement of those living outside and forcing them to relocate and to regularly have their personal possessions confiscated and discarded demands further scrutiny.  

The National Homelessness Law Center, the Southern Legal Counsel and Legal Services of  Greater Miami join the National Coalition for the Homeless with this letter. The local Legal  Services of Greater Miami have several clients who are unsheltered individuals and have  reported incidents in which City of Miami employees under the supervision of City of Miami  Police have thrown away almost all if not all their property. They have documented the  discarding of medical devices, prescription medications, clothing, shoes, tents, identification  documents, dentures, glasses, family photos, and even a family member’s ashes. Most of these  individuals are African American and LatinX residing on the streets of Miami. In addition to  Legal Services’ clients, we have the contact information for another dozen individuals who have  had these negative experiences with the City of Miami police, and we could solicit additional  voices if necessary.  

Further, on October 28, 2021, the City of Miami passed an ordinance which prohibits  encampments on public property which further criminalizes those experiencing homelessness. Typically, DOJ investigations are opened after a tragedy like George Floyd in Minneapolis,  Brionna Taylor in Louisville or Timothy Russell/Malissa Williams in Cleveland, but we are  hoping to avoid a similarly tragic situation in Miami. The individuals swept by the police are  continually starting over. They are having their health jeopardized by discarding their life  sustaining medicine that a doctor has prescribed to address their mental illness or other chronic  conditions. They feel frustrated, angry and treated as a second class citizens by the City of  Miami. We are asking for DOJ involvement to stop a potentially deadly encounter between  those living outside and the police supervising these clean ups. Any of the organizations signed  on to this letter would be willing to assist in any way we can with a DOJ investigation of the  pattern or practice of the City of Miami police.  

Sincerely,  

Donald Whitehead
Executive Director
National Coalition for the Homeless

Jeffrey M. Hearne Esq
Director of Litigation
Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc.

Eric Tars
Legal Director
National Homelessness Law Center

Jodi Siegel
Executive Director
Southern Legal Counsel, Inc.

by Kelvin Lassiter

As the country emerges from the shutdowns surrounding the pandemic, Americans have become inpatient. Promises made regarding voting rights, paid time off, and tax hikes on the wealthy to pay for much needed infrastructure have not come to pass. 

Now, after several months of negotiations, the president’s original $3.5 trillion-dollar spending measure for the infrastructure bill and the social spending package has now been reduced in price tag to $1.75 trillion dollars (read the text of the Build Back Better bill). Some of the highlights of the bill include:

  • 150 billion in housing investments
  • Extension of the Child Tax Credit for one year
  • 100 billion to reduce immigration backlogs
  • Expansion of health care coverage that will save nine million Americans $600 a year on their premiums

Things left out of the final framework:

  • Paid family leave
  • Clean Electricity Performance Program
  • Ability for the government to negotiate with drug companies for Medicare also won’t be allowed.

While the American people appreciate the efforts for the things that will remain in the bill, it is severely underfunded, and will affect our housing insecure population for generations. The cities of New York and Los Angeles combined need at least 150 billion alone to being their public housing infrastructure up to code. Also, eliminating the ability for the government to negotiate drug prices is damaging. Who wants to make the choice to pay for medicine, or pay to survive without medicine?

In his latest remarks, President Biden reminded the country that this bill is historic, and an investment in the American people. Not everybody got everything they wanted including me, but that’s what compromise, and democracy is. While his remarks are true, the American people counted on lower drug prices, lower housing costs, clean air, and paid family leave to survive. Are the American people getting what they voted for? It remains to be seen, stay tuned.

by Donald Whitehead

I was a part of a small group of thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds who often played a lively game of tag football in the Burnet Avenue U.S Post office parking lot in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

I had just scored a long touchdown. As I was finishing my touchdown celebration, I noticed a University of Cincinnati Police cruiser drive by. I saw the woman in the back pointing at some of the people in the parking lot. Minutes later, the parking lot was swamped with police cars. Campus police and Cincinnati officers jumped out in mass with guns drawn, and suddenly we were ordered against the vehicles, and guns were pointed at our heads. We were confused and terrified about what was happening what we had done other than play football on the lot for several hours. Why was there so much anger coming from the police officers? Why did they have their guns drawn?

Donald Whitehead, NCH Executive Director, with Rep. Maxine Waters

I can still hear my best friend say, “let’s run for it.” I sometimes wonder what might have happened if we had taken his advice.  We know from recent history that running would have been a mistake, potentially a fatal mistake.  Luckily one of my brothers who wasn’t placed against the car had gone to get our parents.  Our houses were less than a hundred yards away.  

The white woman in the police car pointing had been robbed and assaulted by a group of black boys, and we fit the description. To her credit, after further inspection, the woman realized that none of our group was involved. The tension faded; however, the damage was done. We were good kids; we went to church every Sunday and sang in the Church Choir; none of us had ever been in trouble. 

This was our first contact with law enforcement ever.

We did not commit the robbery; in fact, it was us that got robbed that day.  We were robbed of innocence, robbed of trust in those that protect and serve—robbed of our belief in a colorblind world.  This is not a unique scenario; it is a lot more common than many would believe.

No child should have to learn such painful lessons with a gun pointed at their head.

That day was the first of many pen pricks of racism that I experienced and still experience to this day.

The incident also taught me not to be silent in the face of discrimination.  Our silence is negligence; we cannot see or experience injustice without protest or at the very least identify it. Our minor protest resulted in season-tickets-for-life to the University of Cincinnati football games.

The other lesson learned for me was the need to understand how and why I fit the description. Why am I suspicious without provocation? Why is my excellence somehow seen as out of the ordinary or achieved through dishonesty or criminality? I immediately wanted to understand history, my history, our collective history. I became a Dr. Martin Luther King fan; unfortunately, this was the only historical figure fully accessible in my post-secondary education.  

I became my own historian, and the more I have learned over the years, the more I have wanted to know.

I have been completely horrified by the middle passage, chattel slavery, black codes, and Jim Crow practices. 

I have also been so proud and grateful to my ancestors.  I am so respectful of their incredible resilience and their ability to survive the unthinkable horrors they endured.  

As my teams and I work to reintroduce the world to our full history, we often encounter the voices of the apathetic or the discouraged. The level of internalized racism is surprisingly significant. I find myself troubled by the thought that nothing will change from some in the community. 

To not believe in change is disrespectful to the many changemakers who have given their lives. Things have changed in many ways, most notably, the end of chattel slavery and the opportunity to gain civil rights have been hard-fought and slow and painful.

In many ways, it does appear that we are going in the wrong direction. From Charlottesville to massive voter depression efforts, it’s easy to be discouraged. It’s easy to ignore the senate election in Georgia or the election of Barack Obama when the Supreme court weakens the civil rights amendment. Watching angry crowds protest students having the ability to learn the unfiltered history of the United States by misrepresenting every attempt as the misunderstood Critical Race Theory, it’s easy to overlook that the Secretary of Defense is a dark-skinned black man.

Our racial reconciliation is recent in history; the first African Americans landed on the continent’s shores in 1619.  Brown versus Board of Education was passed in 1954. For 300 years, we survived on a steady diet of resilience, pride, and hope; we must never abandon those ideals. 

Those discouraged by the current state of our country learn from the setbacks and rejoice about the progress and never stop believing in change. Every living breathing African Americans is a product of success. We are descendants of unfathomable resilience.  Resilience from the 400 years of all of the things I mentioned earlier and resilience from the pen pricks of racism today and those yet to come. The great Booker T. Washington said “Success should not be judged by ones station in life but the obstacles they had to overcome to get there.”

Read more about how centuries of racial injustice affect who experiences homelessness today.

For Immediate Release 

October 19, 2021

Contact:
National Organization for Women, NOW Press Team,  press@now.org 
National Coalition for the Homelessness, Donald Whitehead, dwhitehead@nationalhomeless.org 

October 20: Bring America Home NOW Rally & Press Conference 

National Organization for Women, National Coalition for the Homeless and End Homelessness Advocates Demand Investments to Solve Housing Inequality Crisis 

Washington, D.C. – The housing crisis in the United States has reached a critical point due to long-standing structural inequities compounded by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. As Congress debates President Biden’s “Build Back Better” Infrastructure Bill, advocates from across the affordable housing, women’s rights, and social justice movements have come together in an unprecedented coalition calling on Congress and President Biden to prioritize investments to solve this public housing crisis.  

The coalition, led by the National Organization for Women and the National Coalition for the Homeless, is urging Congress not to cut over $300 billion in much-needed funding for long-overdue renovations of severely dilapidated public housing, an expansion of over 500,000 units of affordable housing for low- income Americans, and the removal of toxic lead paint from public housing. As millions of Americans fall behind on their rents and mortgages, and with the imminent risk of evictions during freezing winter weather conditions, advocates are also urgently calling for an extension of the CDC moratorium on all evictions throughout the duration of the pandemic to avoid the needless tragedy of unhousing possibly millions of families, women, and children.

“Homelessness is a feminist issue that NOW’s activists are deeply invested in solving. We know numbers show that women – especially women of color – are disproportionately affected by homelessness,” stated Christian F. Nunes, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW).  “This issue is compounded by gender-based economic inequality, racial discrimination and the impacts of domestic and sexual violence, which contribute to women, children and families becoming the fastest-growing segments of the homeless population.”

 “America is the wealthiest country in the world, and we can easily afford to pay for the President’s bill, and therefore not cut the housing investments in the legislation. We must have the political will and emergency citizen advocacy to make this happen,“ said Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “The majority of the American people, both Democrats and Republicans, support the President’s plan. Now we the people are organizing a mass mobilization to demand that Congress and President Biden pass the bill, without any cuts to the desperately needed housing provisions.” 

“We as a nationwide progressive end homelessness/housing for all movement will not allow millions of Americans to be evicted and thrown into the streets during the lethal Covid-19 pandemic. Have we no shame,” added Joel Segal, national director of the Bring America Home Now Campaign. “Furthermore, the national BAHN campaign’s most important priorities right now are to stop any cuts to affordable housing in the President’s Infrastructure Bill and a zero-tolerance policy for any evictions during the Covid-19 Pandemic and freezing winter temperatures. It’s unamerican, immoral, and cruel for we the people not to intervene now to stop the unnecessary, life-threatening, and destabilizing nationwide eminent eviction emergency.” 

In addition to calling for investments within the Build Back Better infrastructure package, the coalition has also called for meetings with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia L. Fudge and Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo to discuss allocating funds to the development of housing crisis “navigators,” emulating the success of the Affordable Care Act program to simplify the application process for rental assistance. The coalition hopes to meet with Speaker Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and other congressional leaders to discuss how our country can create lasting solutions and provide housing security for our most vulnerable populations. 

WHAT: Bring America Home NOW Rally & Press Conference

WHEN: Wednesday, October 20th at 10:00am-12:00pm ET

WHERE: Capitol Hill, Constitution Ave & New Jersey Ave. NW (Robert Taft Memorial)

WHO: Bring America Home NOW Campaign featuring NOW & the National Coalition for the Homelessness, members of Congress, and other guest speakers

MORE INFO:  Additional confirmed speakers and logistical details, including location, will be updated here. Members of the media interested in attending or connecting with speakers can contact press@now.org or dwhitehead@nationalhomeless.org.

Click this link to Contact your Congressperson

Flyer for rally in DC on October 20, 2021, calling to Stop Evictions, Housing is Infrastructure

Bring America Home Now Campaign Supports the Build Back Better Act

Bring America Home Now: A Comprehensive Grassroots Campaign to End Homelessness in the U.S. is led by people who have themselves experienced homelessness and is focused on the passage of federal legislation aimed at addressing the interconnected solutions to the decades-long epidemic of homelessness in the United States. 

Bring America Home is focused on six key policy areas: 

  • Housing
  • Health
  • Livable incomes 
  • Education/Training 
  • Civil Rights 
  • Racial Equity

Bring America Home, therefore, supports Build Back Better as it includes important provisions within many of the Campaign’s core elements. Specifically, if passed, the Build Back Better Act would help move us toward the goal of preventing and ending homelessness by making significant investments in Housing Choice Vouchers, the Housing Trust Fund, rural rental housing, HOME, and CDBG programs. Additionally, the Act contains important provisions around zoning, fair housing protections, and addressing homeownership disparities through a down payment fund. Beyond housing, Bring Back Better further seeks to secure broader economic security, as envisioned by the Campaign, through job training and workforce investments, an expansion of the child tax credit, extending family leave, and increasing childcare options. 

It is urgent to act. To ensure the inclusion of these critical investments in Build Back Better, it is necessary your Senator and Representative hear from you immediately. Call Now and express your support for these provisions within the Bring Back Better Act. To find your representative and Senators, click here: GovTrack.us: Tracking the U.S. Congress or call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121

For more information on Bring America Home Now: 

National Coalition for the Homeless Bring America Home NOW! – National Coalition for the Homeless (nationalhomeless.org)

Bring America Home NOW logo