At some point in history, people will look back on this country’s responses to homelessness during the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early 2000s, and most assuredly will wonder, “What the hell were these people thinking?”
The notion that local governments can protect downtown business interests from having to witness the realities of poverty by simply criminalizing the presence of poor people harkens back to the days of Jim Crow, Anti-Okie laws, and almshouses.
But from Portland’s Sit-Lie law to Berkeley’s Public Commons for Everyone to LA’s Safer City Initiative to San Francisco’s, business-directed, but voter-opposed, homeless court, we are seeing a resurgence of the premise that public space is the purview of the business community, and that the only people that have any right to that space are those seen as potential customers or condo tenants. (more…)
Los Angeles is famous as the nation’s capital of movie stars and rich and envied people. But its lesser-known distinction as the nation’s homeless capital has earned it a new title: the “Meanest City” in America.
The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP) and the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) released a report today, Homes Not Handcuffs, tracking a growing trend in U.S. cities - the criminalization of homelessness. The report, available 
Yesterday, Congress passed S. 896, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 and Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009.
Today, the US Senate approved the HEARTH Act (S. 808), which would re-write the federal law governing HUD’s homeless assistance grant programs. We remain very concerned about the definition of homelessness contained in HEARTH. It excludes too many vulnerable children, youth, and families in need of HUD housing assistance; it would be overly complex to administer at the local level; and it was developed well before the recent recession-driven spike in family and youth homelessness. It is not a “compromise” definition, as evidenced by the broad array of housing, children, youth, education, and legal organizations who do not support it. Those of us involved directly in negotiations consistently objected to provisions harmful to child and youth development, including requirements for multiple moves and other arbitrary restrictions imposed on those in motel and doubled-up situations.