Homelessness

Statement On Cheri Honkala’s First Amendment Case Against HUD

June 13, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Galen Tyler, and Matt Pillischer, Popular Resistance. Resist! First Amendment, Homelessness, Housing, HUD

On June 14, the DC Court of Appeals will hear arguments around internationally-recognized housing advocate Cheri Honkala’s appeal of a misdemeanor conviction for seeking an audience in 2018 with Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Ben Carson. The case could set an important precedent on the First Amendment right of the people to petition their government for assistance without fear of punishment for doing so, a right that extends back to the 1215 Magna Carta. Watch the hearing live on the court’s YouTube channel: bit.ly/cheritrial. For decades, Cheri Honkala has been a fearless defender of people’s right to have housing.

Minneapolis Continues Encampment Evictions, Displacing Hundreds In May

May 28, 2023 Akičita Šuŋka-Wakaŋ Ska and Niko Georgiades, Unicorn Riot. Educate! Homelessness, Housing, Human Rights, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, MN — During the month of May, the City of Minneapolis has been busy evicting encampments of unhoused people, displacing hundreds and throwing away many people’s only belongings. Minneapolis Police (MPD) displaced about 80 unhoused people on East Franklin Avenue in South Minneapolis on May 10. Each week since, they’ve evicted several smaller camps erected from those displaced from the Franklin Ave. sweep, continuing a punishing and deadly cycle. “This is what he touts as his great success,” said American Indian Movement member Mike Forcia about Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and homelessness.

The Murder Of Jordan Neely Abetted By Eric Adams

May 12, 2023 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Black America, Homelessness, Jordan Neely, New York City (NYC), Police

On May 1, 2023, a Black man named Jordan Neely was murdered on a New York City subway. He was unhoused and struggled with mental illness. When Neely became agitated and pleaded for food or water, a white passenger named Daniel Penny responded by putting him in a chokehold for 15 minutes and killed him. After police arrived they questioned Penny and chose to let him go instead of putting him under arrest. Even though the murder can be seen on video, Penny remains free while the Black district attorney of Manhattan prepares to present the case to a grand jury. Penny will be tried if the grand jury decides to indict him.

Justice For Jordan Neely!

May 7, 2023 Party for Socialism and Liberation, Liberation News. Resist! Homelessness, Jordan Neely, New York City (NYC), White Vigilantism

On May 1, Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old Black man, was murdered on a northbound F train in Manhattan. Just a few minutes before, Neely, who was homeless, began yelling in the subway car, visibly frustrated and pushed to the brink over the lack of regard other passengers had shown him. “I don’t have food! I don’t have a drink,” Neely exclaimed. “I don’t care if I go to jail, and if they give me life in prison…I am ready to die.” Neely had not attacked anyone on the train or behaved violently, yet he was restrained and put into a chokehold by a 24-year-old white ex-Marine, whose name has not yet been released by police.

California Wants Medicaid To Cover Six Months Of Rent

March 28, 2023 Angela Hart, Next City. Create! California, Health Care, Homelessness, Housing, Human Rights, Medicaid

Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration is struggling to contain a worsening homelessness crisis despite record spending, is trying something bold: tapping federal health care funding to cover rent for homeless people and those at risk of losing their housing. States are barred from using federal Medicaid dollars to pay directly for rent, but California’s governor is asking the administration of President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, to authorize a new program called “transitional rent,” which would provide up to six months of rent or temporary housing for low-income enrollees who rely on the state’s health care safety net — a new initiative in his arsenal of programs to fight and prevent homelessness.

Ahead Of The Final Four, Houston Criminalizes Homelessness

March 25, 2023 Arturo Dominguez, Unicorn Riot. Educate! Homelessness, Houston, Human Rights, Sports, Texas

In Houston, TX., where the NCAA Final Four (college basketball tournament championship games) will take place March 31 – April 3, the mayor’s office has taken it a step beyond displacing the unhoused. Mayor Sylvester Turner’s office has ordered police to target people feeding those in need. After opening a facility to move people miles from downtown from a homeless encampment near Minute Maid Park and the Toyota Center, Mayor Turner began invoking old city ordinances to ticket Food Not Bombs Houston (FNBH) food-sharing volunteers and trying to discourage them from doing what they’ve done for decades: feeding people at the Houston Public Library every night.

Internment Camps For Homeless People Is Increasingly Mainstream

January 28, 2023 Adam Johnson, The Real News Network. Educate! Homelessness, Housing, Human Rights, Internment Camps

“Homelessness Crisis” discourse can generally be broken down into two distinct trends, depending on how one interprets the terms involved: On one side, there are those who believe the crisis in question is that there are human beings living without shelter and the central conflict is a lack of available homes and care for the people who need them; on the other side, there are those who think the crisis is that there are too many homeless people in public spaces who, by virtue of existing, are “hurting business” and generally undermining the “quality of life” of “taxpayers.” These two groups almost always talk past each other, often deliberately so. Sometimes their goals can overlap, but on certain fundamental issues there is simply no common ground. more often than not, their goals, sympathies, and convictions are in direct opposition to one another.

Striking Workers From A Homelessness Charity Beat Their Tight-Fisted Bosses

January 16, 2023 Joe Glenton, The Canary. Resist! Homelessness, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Workers from the homelessness charity Shelter have won their battle against the bosses. Unite the Union, which organises Shelter workers, said they had won a “vastly improved pay offer” following effective strike action. In addition, a one-off payout was also prised out of the bosses. A statement on the Unite website announced: During the strike action talks were held at the conciliation service Acas and an improved pay offer was made. The revised offer was for an increase in pay of seven per cent, which was more than double the three per cent the workers had previously been offered. And added that: In addition, the workers will each receive a one off payment of £1,250. Following a ballot of members, the new offer was accepted. Unite’s general secretary Sharon Graham commended the workers. She said this was more evidence that trade unionism delivered for workers in concrete terms: This was a significant result, our members were prepared to stand together in unity and by doing so were able to secure a greatly improved pay increase.This is further proof of how Unite’s unflinching focus on jobs, pay and conditions is delivering substantial financial benefits for its members.

The Poor Are Bearing The Brunt Of California’s Storms

January 14, 2023 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Educate! California, Extreme weather, Homelessness, Housing

Since late December, the West Coast of the United States has been battered by torrential rain of up to eight inches, strong winds reaching 70 mph that have knocked down power lines and ripped trees from the soil, and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate. US President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in California. The “parade of cyclones,” as read the National Weather Service warning, is predicted to cost USD$1 billion in damages. Thus far, 18 people are dead as a result of these storms. As these storms, heightened in frequency by climate change, wreak havoc in California, many wonder, what of the state’s 172,000 homeless people? California is notorious for its homelessness crisis, with an unhoused population that swelled by 22,000 during the pandemic, attributed to plummeting wages due to the pandemic crisis and increased housing unaffordability.

Autonomous Winter Support Mobilization: Street Patrol Basic Guide

December 26, 2022 IGD Worldwide, It's Going Down. Organize! Extreme weather, Homelessness, Mutual Aid

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, approximately seven hundred people experiencing or at risk of homelessness are killed from hypothermia annually in the so-called United States. Absolutely no one should be left to sleep outside during cold weather yet a range of factors may force people to sleep in the cold; from discriminatory shelters kicking people out, being kicked out of a house during a storm, being forced to flee an abuser, simply being unprepared, etc. Raids sweeps and anti-homeless laws, such as anti-camping ordinances push people to camp in hidden and dispersed areas which puts them more at risk. Street Patrol (SP) consists of an autonomous (decentralized) volunteer crew or multiple crews of people who mobilize to support unsheltered relatives when weather is extremely cold.

With Nearly 60 Frostbite Injuries In Unhoused Community, Advocates Encourage Denver To Do Better

December 26, 2022 Alex Binder, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Colorado, Denver, Extreme weather, Homelessness, Housing

Denver, Colorado – Thursday’s weather is expected to be one of the coldest on record in the city of Denver due to an arctic cold front, bringing temperatures to well below zero degrees with the wind chill. In the weeks leading up to this potentially record breaking cold, medical health professionals with Denver Health and Hospital Authority and the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless (CCH) wrote a joint letter to two city directors recommending the city “take immediate steps to address current deficiencies in 1) criteria used to determine when warming centers are open, and 2) policies and procedures related to forced displacements of unhoused individuals during cold-weather months.” The letter sent on Dec. 12 stated that when unhoused individuals “spend a prolonged amount of time in damp clothing and/or shoes as often occurs following forced displacement from tents,” their “risks for weather-related illness and injury increase exponentially.”

Making ‘The Right To The City’ Real For Urban Dwellers Worldwide

December 11, 2022 Susan Blaustein, Next City. Create! Class Struggle, Homelessness, Housing, Human Rights

This International Human Rights Day, as our mostly urban world is increasingly challenged by rising poverty, migration, inequality and climate risk, let us think about what it would mean to truly enjoy the “right to the city.” From the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the end of World War II to the ensuing drumbeat of further international rights covenants, conventions and declarations, the language of protection and universality of rights would seem to be ubiquitous and generally agreed. Yet discrimination persists. In cities, it most often manifests itself against low-income families, women, those in the LGBTQ+ community, those in Indigenous communities, the very young, the very old, those differently abled, non-nationals, the homeless, the formerly incarcerated and those representing other marginalized groups.

Groups File Emergency Request To Halt Controversial Mental Health Plan

December 11, 2022 Ali Bauman, CBS News. Resist! Eric Adams, Homelessness, Human Rights, New York (NY), New York City (NYC)

New York City, New York - Mayor Eric Adams' new plan to involuntarily hospitalize some mentally ill people living on New York City streets is facing its first legal battle. Advocates are arguing the plan is unconstitutional. Shannon O'Neill Fonseca was involuntarily hospitalized by NYPD officers in 2019 when her then-partner told 911 she was a danger to herself. "Some of the PTSD that I struggle the most with right now is from my hospitalizations," she said. "When I was discharged, I did not receive any type of support, there wasn't really an aftercare plan, it was so hard for me to submit any type of documentation and no one followed up with me." Fonseca has never been homeless herself but worries about the mayor's new policy directing police to forcibly hospitalize mentally ill homeless people who are deemed a danger to themselves or unable to meet their needs.

Camp Resolution Pushes Back Against Proposed Mass Eviction

November 20, 2022 It's Going Down. Resist! California, Homeless encampment, Homelessness, Housing, Sacramento

Around 50 residents of a self-organized encampment known as Camp Resolution, which has been occupied since late September of this year, are now celebrating after the Sacramento City Council was pushed to pass a unanimous vote against a sweep by police, leading to a pause in a scheduled mass eviction. While the future of the space remains unknown, residents and supporters of the camp are currently rallying in support and gathering food and other supplies. What began as a safe place for people living in RVs and tiny homes, became another skirmish in an increasing war on the houseless, as Democratic run cities turned away from progressive policies towards an all out attack on the poor.

Study: Housing Market A Root Cause Of Portland Homeless Crisis

November 20, 2022 Blair Best, KGW. Educate! Homelessness, Housing, Oregon, Portland

Portland, Oregon - A new study by a pair of researchers tried to find the root cause of homelessness in cities across the U.S. It revealed how Portland's housing market plays a much bigger part in the crisis than many might think. The urban study called “Homelessness is a Housing Problem” found that the biggest factors in the homeless crisis are not necessarily addiction or mental health but rather a combination of high rent prices and a lack of affordable housing. “Any given night in Multnomah County, five per 1,000 people are experiencing homelessness, which is quite a high number,” said Clayton Aldern, one of the researchers behind the study. The data dates back to 2019 and looks at the 30 largest urban areas in the country.

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