Homelessness

Criminalizing Homelessness Doesn’t Work; Housing People Does

June 5, 2025 Farrah Hassen, Scheer Post. Create! Criminalization, Homelessness, Housing First, Legal System

In the largest eviction of a homeless encampment in recent history, around 100 unhoused people were recently forced to vacate Oregon’s Deschutes National Forest — or else face a $5,000 fine and up to one year in jail. The forest was the last hope for the encampment’s residents, many of whom were living in broken down RVs and cars. Shelters in nearby Bend — where the average home price is nearly $800,000 — are at capacity, and rent is increasingly unaffordable. “There’s nowhere for us to go,” Chris Dake, an encampment resident who worked as a cashier and injured his knee, told the New York Times.

The Homeless Garden Project: Opening Doors To The Unhoused

April 20, 2025 Damon Orion, Counter Punch. Create! Community, Food and Agriculture, Gardens, Homelessness

An analysis of data from 2017 and 2022 by the Pew Charitable Trusts points to a direct connection between high housing costs and homelessness rates in the United States. Unsurprisingly, a Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury 2024 report stated that the city, which the National Low Income Housing Coalition ranked as America’s most expensive rental market in 2023 and 2024, has the most people experiencing homelessness in California per capita. A University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), research project called No Place Like Home labeled Santa Cruz as “the least-affordable small city in the U.S.”

Biden’s Legacy: Genocide Abroad, Economic Despair At Home

January 20, 2025 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Educate! Class Struggle, Cost of living, Donald Trump, Finance and the Economy, Genocide, Homelessness, Housing, Israel, Joe Biden, Medicaid, Palestine, Palestine solidarity movement, United States

46th US President Joe Biden officially leaves office Monday, January 20, to be succeeded by former President Donald Trump. Trump’s promises in the name of “saving American workers” have raised alarm for people across sectors of society, including migrant workers who are gearing up for mass deportations, and unionized workers who are preparing for Trump’s attacks on labor rights. Trump’s loyalty to multi-billionaires has also given the working class of the US great cause for concern. Meanwhile, in contrast, the Democrats have attempted to position themselves as the real defenders of working people.

The Homelessness Crisis Is About To Get A Lot Worse

January 2, 2025 Chloe Atkinson, Counter Punch. Educate! Affordable Housing, Donald Trump, Homelessness, Housing Crisis

With just weeks to go before Donald Trump waltzes back into the White House, America has an additional problem on its hands. The homelessness rate has surged, rising by 18% in 2024 compared to last year. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual assessment report, more than 770,000 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. Nearly 150,000 children experienced homelessness on a single night in 2024, a whopping 33% increase from 2023. The number of homeless older Americans also rose, with more than 140,000 people over the age of 55 going unhoused in the U.S. this year. Nearly half of these older Americans reported living in places not meant for humans.

One Year Ago, Brazil Banned Hostile Architecture

December 30, 2024 Raphael Tsavkko Garcia, Next City. Educate! Architecture, Brazil, Homelessness, Hostile architecture, Urban Design

In February 2021, at the height of the pandemic, images of a lone priest standing beneath an overpass with a sledgehammer in his hands captured Brazil’s attention. Father Julio Lancellotti, a São Paulo-based priest known for his work with trans people and those living on the streets, had crushed hundreds of stones placed there by São Paulo’s mayor to prevent homeless people from taking shelter beneath the overpass. Lancellotti was protesting hostile architecture, the design of public spaces or structures to discourage their use. From removing seating from train stations to installing metal dividers on benches, hostile architecture attempts to keep the “unwanted” away from certain spaces — especially keeping unhoused people from seeking shelter, sleeping, sitting or existing in the public.

US Report Finds Homelessness Soared 18% This Year

December 28, 2024 Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams. Educate! Affordable Housing, Biden administration, Homelessness, Report

The controversial federal system for tracking homelessness in the United States recorded an 18% increase from 2023, breaking the record previously set last year, according to a report released Friday. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) process—which advocates and experts have long argued is flawed and results in inaccurate data that understates the homelessness crisis—provides a snapshot of how many people are unhoused for a single night each January. This year, the HUD report states, "a total of 771,480 people—or about 23 of every 10,000 people in the United States—experienced homelessness in an emergency shelter, safe haven, transitional housing program, or in unsheltered locations across the country."

What Started As Emergency Housing Offers Model For Ending Homelessness

December 23, 2024 Frances Nguyen, Next City. Create! Delaware, Homelessness, Housing, housing solutions

It was fortuitous that the Sheraton Wilmington South in New Castle County went up for auction right before the state had to meet the spending deadline for federal CARES Act funds. Amid a raging global public health crisis, Delaware’s most populous county needed safe non-congregate housing for its most vulnerable population, and, following California’s Project Roomkey model, it looked to hotels. On Dec. 1, 2020, New Castle County settled on the property for $19.5 million, and a mere two weeks later, the Hope Center opened, welcoming its first 73 residents on the eve of the state’s first COVID winter surge.

The Lessons L.A.’s Anti-Olympics Organizers Are Taking From Paris

December 17, 2024 Phineas Rueckert, Next City. Strategize! Califonia, Displacement, Homelessness, Los Angeles, Olympics, Paris

On Nov. 3, a group of young people armed with banners began to prepare a protest. It was just two days before the U.S. election, but these activists weren’t at the White House or Trump Tower. Instead, they made their way to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. As evening fell, the activists beamed a powerful laser onto the iron grills of the tower. “Olympics Legacy: 20,000 Evictions,” the message read. This action was the grand finale of The Other Side of the Medal, a coalition of Parisian activists shedding light – in this case, literally – on how the Olympic Games can harm host cities through temporary displacement of rough sleepers, heavy policing of low-income communities, greenwashing and other side effects.

Cities Say They Store Property Taken From Homeless Encampments

November 21, 2024 Nicole Santa Cruz, Asia Fields and Ruth Talbot, Pro Publica. Educate! City Government, Homeless Camps, Homelessness, State Repression

When Stephenie came upon workers in Portland, Oregon, who had bagged up all of her belongings in a homeless encampment sweep, she desperately pleaded to get one item back: her purse. It contained her cash and food stamp card — what she needed to survive. The crew refused to look for it, she said. The items workers had put in clear bags were headed to a city warehouse. Those in black bags were headed to a landfill. They handed her a card with a phone number to call if she wanted to pick up her things.

There’s An Abundance Of Housing; Let’s Organize To Take It Over

November 4, 2024 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG Homelessness, Housing, Human Rights, Occupation, Poverty, Squatting

The Poor People's Army, formerly the Poor People's Economic and Human Rights Campaign, has been leading efforts across the country to place individuals and families who need them into federally-owned housing for a long time. Their position is that housing is a human right and that people in need should not be forced to wait for shelter. They recently published "Takeover: A Human Rights Approach to Housing" on Poor People's Press, a step-by-step guide to occupying empty houses. Clearing the FOG speaks with Cheri Honkala, the lead author, and Galen Tyler, a lead organizer with the Poor People's Army, about the current housing crisis and how people can use the new book to end the crisis of homelessness.

There’s A Severe Housing Crisis In The US: The Work To Make Housing A Right

October 29, 2024 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG Affordable Housing, Billionaires, Corporatism, Homelessness, Housing, Hyper-Gentrification, Inequality, Social Housing

A new report, Billionaire Blowback on Housing: How concentrated wealth disrupts housing markets and worsens the housing affordability crisis, explains how the United States has entered a state of hyper-gentrification in which the average person has to compete with a large corporation when it comes to buying or renting a home. There are currently 28 vacant homes for every homeless person. Clearing the FOG speaks with Chuck Collins, a co-author of the report, and Mehrdad Azemun of Peoples Action, about the housing crisis, the vision for a homes guarantee and how people are working to make housing a human right.

New Approach To Prosecuting Low-Level Offenses ‘A Massive Success’

October 10, 2024 Kyle Dunphey, Utah News Dispatch. Create! Addiction, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Homelessness, Legal System, Salt Lake City, Utah

It’s been one year since Salt Lake City launched a new court tailored toward individuals struggling with mental health, addiction or homelessness and so far, the data looks promising, with dozens of people who previously had hundreds of run-ins with police now steering clear of the criminal justice system. The city’s new, aptly named “Familiar Faces” program works with people who have had multiple contacts with Salt Lake City Police officers in recent years, resulting in dozens, sometimes more than 100, low-level, nonviolent charges during their life. That mostly includes class B and C misdemeanors like trespassing, illegal camping, theft or criminal mischief.

Minneapolis Residents Are Building Yurts To Shelter Homeless Neighbors

September 16, 2024 Lorena Bally, Next City. Create! Homeless encampment, Homelessness, Housing, Minneapolis, Yurts

Christin Crabtree walked out of St. Paul’s Church in Southern Minneapolis feeling hope on the morning of July 24. An organizer with the local unhoused resident outreach project Camp Nenookaasi, she left the community meeting believing that locals would work together with the 80 people living in Nenookaasi’s three small encampments to help keep each other safe. But at 6:30 a.m. the next day, residents at all three camps woke to police-enforced evictions. Officers arrived with heavy machinery to heave residents’ tents, bikes, blankets, mattresses and clothing into a garbage truck. Within minutes, residents lost access to medical records, identification, cellphones and other belongings.

Takeover! A Human Rights Approach To Housing

September 13, 2024 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Create! Book Review, Homelessness, Housing, Human Rights

Cheri Honkala and the Poor People’s Army, also known as the Poor People’s Campaign for Economic Human Rights, produced their book about how to take over abandoned federal properties. In the City of Philadelphia, where the Poor People’s Army is based, scholar Elsa Noterman reports that there are 10 abandoned properties for every single homeless person. Nevertheless, the wait times to receive public housing are years long. Their neighborhood, Kensington, has been devastated by factory closures since the passage of NAFTA. “Call to Movement: The Politics of Love,” the first section of the introduction to TAKEOVER!, is inspiring, heartrending and, like the rest of the book, beautifully written.

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