Housing as a Human Right in the United States

Last month, the Law Center, together with two of our sister organizations, presented the recommendations of our coalition of national advocates to a formal meeting of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. ICH Chair and HUD Secretary Donovan was there, joined by Secretaries Sebelius, Solis and Shinseki, along with senior staff from most of the member agencies.

We presented our coalition's joint recommendations for the National Strategic Plan to End Homelessness, mandated by the HEARTH Act, and representatives of many of our coalition's members attended. You can see photos and read ICH's write-up here.

The council's interest in hearing from advocates was a welcome change from past practices, and a good-if modest-step forward. We will look forward to working with the council and to continued advocacy on the plan.

This month, as you'll read below, we held our National Forum on the Human Right to Housing, bringing together activists from around the country for a day and a half of discussion. To see photos from the forum, click here. The forum came at the end of the first official U.S. visit of the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, a visit we co-organized, and we were excited to have her with us at the opening session of the forum.

As Fred Karnas, senior advisor to HUD Secretary Donovan, said at the forum, "Whether or not we say housing is a human right, we need to act like it is." Right now, there's a big gap between the human right to housing and our country's own housing policies and practices. A strong National Plan to End Homelessness should include a goal of closing that gap. With a more open Interagency Council and the special rapporteur's report on the U.S. expected this March, we must take advantage of this important opportunity for advocacy.

On Sunday, November 8, after hearing testimony from dozens of homeless and low-income tenants and housing advocates at NLCHP's National Forum on the Human Right to Housing, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing Raquel Rolnik warned "Millions of people in the U.S. are spending high percentages of their income to make their monthly rent and mortgage payment, face foreclosure or eviction, and live in overcrowded and substandard conditions."

"The number of homeless continues to rise with increasing numbers of working families and individuals finding themselves on the streets," highlighted the UN expert after visiting Washington DC, New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Pacoima and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

NLCHP partnered with the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) to coordinate the special rapporteur's visit. In particular, NLCHP organized a national briefing with housing advocates and site visits to locations in DC. We also coordinated two dozen testimonies from areas where the rapporteur could not visit during her official mission. These were presented at the National Forum.

The forum continued the next day with advocates from each of the cities the rapporteur visited sharing how they are using the rapporteur's visit as part of their advocacy strategies. The 150 participants in the conference also attended workshops to learn more about applying a human rights approach to a wide variety of housing and homelessness issues.

The rapporteur will make her final report on the U.S. visit to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2010. NLCHP will work with its partners to incorporate her recommendations, as well as the outcomes of the Forum, into its national advocacy campaign for the human right to housing.

Pictures from the visit are available on Flickr.
Media and other coverage of the visit is available at the mission blog site: http://restorehousingrights.org.
To see video of the rapporteur's remarks and advocate testimony from around the country, click here.

NLCHP thanks the US Human Rights Fund, Butler Family Fund, and Cafritz Foundation for support of its Human Rights Program.

NLCHP, in partnership with Idaho Legal Aid Services and Latham & Watkins, filed a lawsuit in federal court on October 22, 2009 on behalf of seven homeless plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality of enforcement of two municipal laws used to criminally punish homeless residents for sleeping outside.

According to a government report released in 2006, the number of homeless Boise residents ranges from 2,000 to 4,500 people. However, Boise only has 310 year-round emergency shelter beds and overflow or cold-weather space for an additional 400 people, leaving hundreds of residents without shelter.

Despite the lack of available shelter, the Boise Police Department has been citing and arresting homeless individuals for sleeping outside under the city's anti- camping and disorderly conduct laws. Since 2006, the city has issued hundreds of citations against homeless people for sleeping outside.

The plaintiffs in the suit have been cited under either the anti-camping ordinance or disorderly conduct ordinance for sleeping outside. Penalties for violating these ordinances have included incarceration. One plaintiff served 90 days in jail for his citation under the anti-camping law. They have also been charged fees by the county for the time they were incarcerated.

"Jailing homeless persons for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go is not only inhumane, but a counterproductive approach to homelessness," said Tulin Ozdeger, NLCHP Civil Rights Director. "Incarceration disrupts services and benefits people may be receiving, and criminal records hamper their efforts to obtain housing and employment."

The plaintiffs assert that enforcement of the ordinances violates their constitutional protections, including the Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, the right to travel, and due process. They are seeking an injunction to stop enforcement of the ordinances, a declaration of the unconstitutionality of enforcement, expungement of the records related to unlawful citations under the ordinances, reimbursement of fees related to those unlawful citations, and damages.

NLCHP brought together five other advocacy organizations to file a support letter with the California Supreme Court on November 9, 2009 encouraging the Court to review Alameda County's definition of "employability" for its General Assistance benefits program.

California's General Assistance benefits program provides assistance of last resort to numerous individuals in California. State-mandated, but administered by county, the legislation requires counties to provide minimal monthly assistance to people who do not qualify for any other assistance programs. Counties may restrict benefits by imposing time limits on how long "employable" individuals can receive benefits. Beginning January 2008, Alameda County imposed a six-month time limitation on "employable" individuals. It defined "employable" as persons under 64 years of age who have no physical, mental, or emotional incapacity that prevents them from working.

Six plaintiffs challenged Alameda County's definition in June 2008 when their benefits were terminated. The plaintiffs requested that Alameda County take into account a person's skills, experience, education, literacy, vocational capacities, and other practical employability factors when determining whether the person should be subject to the "employable" person limitation.

The trial court determined that Alameda County had abused its discretion by using this overly simplified understanding of "employability," without regard to practical employability factors, but the court of appeals reversed the decision. The plaintiffs are appealing to the California Supreme Court on the grounds that Alameda County's definition of "employable" is at odds with the General Assistance scheme.

The Dechert law firm partnered with NLCHP to write an eloquent and persuasive letter on behalf of NLCHP and the five other organizations, urging the court to review this case. The letter outlined the significant impact the time limitation will have on low income people in Alameda County, particularly highlighting the potential increase in homelessness. The letter also discusses the increased costs the county would likely incur from a rise in homelessness. NLCHP thanks Dechert for excellent work with quick turn around on the project.

Whitney is the Law Center's new Development and Communications Manager. As such, she is responsible for coordinating all of NLCHP's public and media relations, as well as our fundraising efforts.

Prior to joining NLCHP, Whitney served as the Director of Development at a daytime resource center for people experiencing poverty and homelessness in Bloomington, Indiana. She also completed her master's degree in Rhetoric and Public Culture at Indiana University last May, with a research emphasis on representations of homelessness in the United States. During her time at IU, Whitney taught undergraduate courses in public speaking and business and professional communication.

Whitney has also worked as a Community Relations Specialist at a homeless day center in Indianapolis and has done short-term development and/or communications work in university, humanitarian aid, and public broadcasting organizations.

She received her B.A. in speech communication from Drury University, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2006.

Andy Beres is the organization's Grant Writer and Communications Assistant. In those capacities, he researches and writes grants, authors year-end reports, and supports the media outreach efforts of the Development and Communications Manager.

Prior to joining the Law Center, Andy served as Development Director for Students Sharing Coalition, a Baltimore-based nonprofit exposing middle and high school youth to social justice issues and offering them meaningful opportunities to serve their community. During his time there, Andy was responsible for all grant writing and media outreach, as well as the design and launch of a new website.

Andy graduated from Stevenson University in 2007, where he received a B.A. in English Language and Literature and was a member of the National English Honors Society.

NLCHP is a 501(c)(3) organization. Contact us at (202) 638-2535 or email us at nlchp@nlchp.org

Please visit our website at http://www.nlchp.org