Homelessness

Denver’s Housing First Initiative A ‘Remarkable Success’

August 26, 2021 Robert Davis, Invisible People. Create! Denver, Homelessness, Housing, Housing First

Colorado - A five-year evaluation of Denver’s Social Impact Bond (SIB) program by The Urban Institute found the housing first initiative is a “remarkable success” at reducing chronic homelessness. In all, the study found that 79 percent of people who received treatment under the program were engaged in stable housing. Those referred to SIB spent an average of 560 more days in housing than people who received other community assistance. Overall, the study analyzed the cases of 724 program participants. After one year, 86 percent of people remained in stable housing. After two years, the number stood at 81 percent. And, after three years, over 77 percent of participants remained housed. The program—one of the first in the country—also reduced shelter visits and police contacts for participants.

A Watershed Ruling On Homelessness

April 25, 2021 Kevin Schofield, South Seattle Emerald. Create! California, Homelessness, Legal System, Skid Row

California -On Tuesday, April 20, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter of the Central District of California issued a ruling that is likely to become a watershed moment in the United States’ response to homelessness. In March of last year, the LA Alliance for Human Rights and several individuals sued the City and County of Los Angeles, alleging that they had not only fundamentally failed to address the homeless emergency in Los Angeles but had in fact contributed to creating it over the course of several decades. The complaint they filed reads more like what we might imagine the authors of the “Seattle is Dying” video would have written about Los Angeles: public health hazards, accumulating trash, rising crime, blocked sidewalks, local government leaders unwilling or unable to rise to the challenge of dealing with it.

An Improbable Vanguard Of Poor People Is ‘Reclaiming’ Vacant Homes

February 18, 2021 Robin Urevich, Capital and Main. Resist! Affordable Housing, Home takeovers, Homelessness, Housing

On the night before Thanksgiving last year, Sasha Atkins, a 31-year-old hair stylist and single mom, hauled a few carefully chosen belongings – her phone, blankets, pillows and a laptop – into a vacant duplex on Shelley Street in Los Angeles’ El Sereno neighborhood and held her breath. Busting into an empty house was a last resort, but the pandemic has turned her precarious housing situation into an emergency. For three years, she and her son couch surfed or occasionally landed a motel room. But work had become scarce, and friends and family feared COVID-19 if they let new people into their homes. So, even though she was afraid, she moved forward.

Every New Yorker Has A Right To A Roof

February 11, 2021 Jose Lopez and Barika Williams, Gotham Gazette. Create! COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing, New York City (NYC)

Well before the beginning of the pandemic that has turned life upside down, New Yorkers already faced a devastating affordable housing and homelessness crisis. Even without the dramatic wave of unemployment brought about by a global pandemic, low-income tenants and homeless people across the city faced a grave lack of truly affordable housing and the absence of an effective citywide plan to fix it. Now, of course, the crisis has deepened, with tenants who have long lived paycheck to paycheck unable to scrape together even a modest living to pay their rent, and the danger of living on the street or in a congregate shelter multiplied by a deadly virus.

Nearly 1,000 Homeless People Died In LA In 2020 As 93,000 Homes Sit Vacant

November 3, 2020 Alex Ferrer, Terra Graziani and Jacob Woocher, Truthout. Educate! Affordable Housing, Homelessness, Tenant Rights, Vacant houses

In many major metropolitan areas across the United States, there are far more vacant homes than people experiencing homelessness. This is true in New York City, it’s true in the Bay Area, and as our new report shows, it’s true in Los Angeles. Here, there are 93,000 vacant homes compared to just over 41,000 unhoused people. Our report, the product of a collaboration between UCLA School of Law and the community-based nonprofits Strategic Actions for a Just Economy and Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, is perhaps the most detailed look yet at the characteristics of residential vacancies situated in the broader speculative housing market in any city in the United States.

Sanctuary Camp Residents Pressured To Move

August 23, 2020 By Jenn Schreiter, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Homelessness, Minneapolis, Police, Tent Encampment

Minneapolis, MN – Houseless Twin Cities residents have recently endured arrests, the trashing of their belongings, and violent actions at the hands of Park Police, whose participation in these sweeps has been documented by local photographers. Several hundred people living in dozens of camps across the Twin Cities wonder every day whether their only means of shelter against the elements will be destroyed by police officers. Last week Friday, the remaining sanctuary encampment at Minneapolis’ Powderhorn Park was cleared by armed police.

28 Million Evictions Loom As Houses Sit Empty

August 4, 2020 Lee Camp, Consortium News. Resist! Evictions, Homelessness, Housing, Recession

Congress’s inability to actually represent the real-live human beings of America, combined with an economic system that rewards lack of empathy and an excess of greed, has brought us to a dark time when an oncoming tsunami of financial ruin, destitution and evictions towers over our heads, blocking out the sunlight. The impending evictions may soon kick 28 million people/families out of their homes. To put that in perspective, only ten million people lost their homes during the 2008 economic crisis, and that was considered by anyone paying attention to be the craziest thing to ever happen.

Homelessness In The COVID-19 Era

July 27, 2020 Rajan Menon, Tom Dispatch. Educate! COVID-19, Homelessness, Pandemic, Public Health

The novel SARS-CoV-2 has roared through the American landscape leaving physical, emotional, and economic devastation in its wake. By early July, known infections in this country exceeded three million, while deaths topped 135,000. Home to just over 4% of the global population, the United States accounts for more than a quarter of all fatalities from Covid-19, the disease produced by the coronavirus. Amid a recent surge of infections, especially across the Sun Belt, which Vice President Mike Pence typically denied was even occurring, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the daily total of infections had reached a record 60,000.

Single Mothers And Children Take Over Abandoned Public Buildings

July 25, 2020 Mindy Isser, In These Times. Create! COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing, Philadelphia

In Philadelphia, single mothers and their children have moved into abandoned, publicly owned buildings, in the most significant housing take over in the country—at a time when millions have lost their jobs and the country is on the brink of another housing crisis. Jennifer Bennetch has helped place unhoused people into vacant homes owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA), as the founder of Occupy PHA and a member of the Philadelphia Housing Action coalition. She's doing what she says is “the government’s job to make sure people who need it have housing.”

Without Immediate Action, Millions Of People Will Be Evicted In The Coming Months

July 23, 2020 Jannine Jackson, FAIR. Educate! COVID-19, Homelessness, Housing, Recession

From the beginning, we have seen that if the federal government didn’t intervene in a really significant and sustained way, that we would see a wave of evictions and a spike in homelessness. And so these limited federal eviction moratoriums, and these state and local moratoriums that have been put in place, have provided some protections for low-income renters, and have helped prevent that wave from happening. But those moratoriums are rapidly expiring. As of today, there are 29 governors that have allowed their state eviction moratoriums to expire, and the limited federal eviction moratoriums expire next week. We have been tracking emergency rental assistance programs that have been created in response to Covid-19. As of now, there are about 151 emergency rental assistance programs around the country. Their main challenge is lack of resources: The demand for those emergency rental assistance programs far outstripped the resources that are available.

Looming Evictions May Soon Make 28 Million Homeless

July 15, 2020 Annie Nova, CNBC. Educate! Cancel the Rent, Evictions, Homelessness, Recession

Emily Benfer began her career representing homeless families in Washington, D.C. Her first case involved a family that had been evicted after complaining to their landlord about the holes in their roof. One of the times she met with the family, one of the children, a 4-year-old girl, asked her: “Are you really going to help us?” Benfer struggled with how to answer. “I’d met them too late,” she said. “I couldn’t stop the eviction. They had already been sleeping on the subway, and in other people’s homes. And you could see the effects it was taking on them.” Today, Benfer is a leading expert on evictions. She is the chair of the American Bar Association’s Task Force Committee on Eviction and co-creator of the COVID-19 Housing Policy Scorecard with the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.

Coronavirus: Rough Sleepers In London Given Hotel Rooms

March 24, 2020 Staff, Bbc.com Educate! Coronavirus, COVID-19, Homelessness, London, United Kingdom (UK)

About 300 rooms were made available this weekend to vulnerable people already known to homelessness charities as part of an initial trial. London Mayor Sadiq Khan's office is working with Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) to block-book rooms at a discounted rate for the next 12 weeks. It comes as Londoners and visitors stay away from central London.

Another Group Of Homeless Moms And Families Are Taking Over A House — This Time In L.A.

March 16, 2020 By Liam Dillon and Laura J. Nelson, Latimes.com Create! Homelessness, Los Angeles, Mothers

Weeks after a group of homeless mothers took over a vacant house in Oakland and managed to keep it, another group of moms is trying to do the same in Los Angeles. On Saturday morning, the protesters and their families moved into a two-bedroom bungalow in El Sereno. They say they plan to remain indefinitely and potentially take over more houses.

Number Of Homeless Students In The US Surges 15%, Now Topping 1.5 Million

March 8, 2020 the National Center for Homeless Education. Educate! Children, Homelessness, Public schools, Students

The number of homeless students enrolled in public school districts and reported by state educational agencies (SEAs) during school year (SY) 2017-18 was 1,508,265. This number does not reflect the totality of children and youth experiencing homelessness, as it only includes those students who are enrolled in public school districts or local educational agencies (LEAs.) It does not capture school-aged children and youth who experience homelessness during the summer only, those who dropped out of school, or young children who are not enrolled in preschool programs administered by LEAs. Key findings of this report include the following: • The number of identified, enrolled students reported as experiencing homelessness at some point during the last three school years increased 15 percent, from 1,307,656 students in SY 2015-16 to 1,508,265 students in SY 2017-18.

New Round Of Trump Budget Cuts Could Force More Californians Into Homelessness, Advocates Say

February 19, 2020 David Lightman and Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks, Mcclatchydc.com Educate! Budget Cuts, California, Homelessness, Trump Administration

The Trump administration is proposing a cut in homeless assistance funding next year, frustrating advocates who say the crisis in Sacramento and other cities is worsening. The White House budget plan for fiscal 2021, which begins Oct. 1, proposes $2.773 billion for homeless assistance grants, slightly less than the current year. The administration also wants to cut funding for affordable housing programs as well as Community Development Block Grants, which help revive and improve neighborhoods.

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