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Post by Admin on Aug 26, 2020 13:28:16 GMT
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Post by Admin on Sept 3, 2020 14:31:55 GMT
The point is that homelessness results from a predatory economic and social system [CapiTaLisM] where there are small numbers of big winners and lots of people without the means to survive in any level of comfort. Living in a comfortable nurturing environment is a basic human right. www.counterpunch.org/2020/09/02/the-number-of-homeless-people-is-about-to-skyrocket/SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 The Number of Homeless People is About to SkyrocketThe Covid-19 pandemic will cause the number of homeless people and homeless families to skyrocket. This is not so much a prediction as a certainty. With government subsidies to people to help pay rent and mortgages at an end, and with unemployment benefits reduced, the number of adults and children on the streets will grow exponentially. Why is this? The answer is that the few and the very wealthy, the oligarchs and the plutocrats, couldn’t give a damn about homeless people in the US. When money flowed to the homeless, during the years I was a grant writer for a homeless shelter and a volunteer at that shelter, there was Housing and Urban Development money for the homeless and grant money available from private charitable organizations. The romance with the homeless ended as austerity, spending on wars, and tax cuts for the wealthy became all the rage. Homelessness was seen as a nuisance. Corporate profits were hoisted as good above all else. Greed became a virtue. As the economy became deindustrialized, the society put hordes of people onto the streets and into jails for warehousing and further exploitation. The diminished union movement put an exclamation point on it all. There’s a series that can be seen on YouTube called Invisible People and I think one of its best segments aired in 2018. I may have been drawn to this episode because they filmed it in Ithaca, New York, a place that I love. Ithaca is a college town in upstate New York, which is the home of Cornell University and Ithaca College. Ithaca, like so many college towns across the US, has been especially hard hit by the pandemic because these schools employ lots of people in the area. It’s not much of a leap of faith to know instinctively that the number of homeless people will grow in places like Ithaca. During my last visit to Ithaca, I came upon a meal site based in a church and there was a long line that had queued up outside its door waiting for it to open. This was long before the pandemic hit. The segment of Invisible People cited above travels into an undeveloped area of fields in Ithaca and the interviews and scenes of homeless people and homeless shelters is powerful. It would be impossible to view this video without a wrenching emotional and intellectual reaction. Compare the scenes and people in that video with this short video I shot on a street in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts a few weeks ago. I did not have camera equipment with me at the time, so the video is shaky (A Pool and a Pandemic). Try to remain objective while watching this video. Compare what I portray in this video with the scenes of homeless people in Ithaca. The point is that homelessness results from a predatory economic and social system where there are small numbers of big winners and lots of people without the means to survive in any level of comfort. Living in a comfortable nurturing environment is a basic human right. Those in the middle class may feel squeamish about homeless people, but masses of people understand that it’s the business as usual nature of the social and economic systems that creates homelessness and gives many the ability to accept its worst expressions. It’s no accident that a social class of those with almost no means is relegated to fields, the streets, and sometimes dangerous and overcrowded shelters. There are very few people who choose a life of homelessness, but most are driven there by job loss, domestic violence, and mental illness. Some have been cast out by their families and others have fallen to the scourge of substance abuse, a condition with a host of its own causes. The major cause of homelessness is that there is a limited stock of affordable housing and affordable rentals as home prices soar ever higher and higher for a host of reasons including the machinations of real estate investing and gentrification. Buying a first home in the area where I live is an almost unimaginable enterprise with real estate dynamics driving the price of homes and rental properties through the roof, while jobs that provide enough income for the purchase of a home are almost nonexistent. Much can be learned about a society from how it treats its most vulnerable members.
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Post by Admin on Sept 13, 2020 22:35:37 GMT
Latest official figures show a drastic increase in street homelessness. 10,000 ppl in London alonIf govt can pass emergency legislation stopping groups of more than 6 meeting then it should pass this bill to prevent homelessness: Our draft emergency homelessness legislation will help achieve an end to rough sleeping and homelessness by: Creating a new temporary duty on local authorities in England to provide emergency accommodation The duty would provide everyone who is homeless with emergency accommodation for 12 months by removing priority need and eligibility tests. In addition, the relief duty would also been extended to cover everyone during this period, so that councils can begin to do the meaningful work needed to help people out of hotels and into permanent accommodation. It would not require councils to provide permanent housing directly. We will be calling for this duty to be fully backed by funding. Temporarily providing additional support to people with no recourse to public funds (NRPF): The legislation will temporarily lift NRPF status for 12 months for people who are assisted under this new legislation – not more widely, and only for a limited period of time. This will ensure that emergency accommodation can be funded via the welfare system for a limited period of time, therefore reliving the burden on local authorities around funding. Without this, a significant proportion of people currently being supported are likely to return to our streets once emergency protections end, reversing progress towards ending rough sleeping we have seen in recent months. Furthermore without measures to lift the status, councils will be left to pick up a much bigger bill. Temporarily suspending the benefit cap: This will support local authorities to find affordable, move on accommodation for those that are currently in emergency accommodation. Suspending the cap for 12 months as drafted in the emergency legislation will also prevent people from being hit by the cap if they are newly homeless and are unable to return to work once the 9 month protection from the cap ends. Extending protections for renters: These clauses are largely based on the draft clauses from the HCLG Select Committee and would provide judges with greater discretion to prevent renters being evicted when rent arrears arise as a direct result of coronavirus. We believe this measure is vital to help stem the flow of people into homelessness as a result of the economic impact of the pandemic over the coming months. Download the Homelessness and the Prevention of Homelessness (Covid-19-Response) Bill full draft (PDF) Download the explanatory notes for the Bill (PDF) www.crisis.org.uk/get-involved/home-for-all/noticeboard/home-for-all-emergency-legislation/
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Post by Admin on Sept 19, 2020 21:45:52 GMT
Every Single Person Has a Right to Housing BY ALEXIS ZANGHI Building a humane city should start from the premise that every person deserves a decent place to live. And the only way to accomplish that is through collective action, carried out by working-class movements. jacobinmag.com/2020/09/modern-housing-feminist-city-bauer-leslie-kernWhen geographer Leslie Kern first moves to Toronto’s Junction neighborhood, its public spaces are overwhelmingly geared toward male and working-class customers. There are pawn shops and porn shops, cheap donut shops, and greasy diners. A coffee shop, the Nook, establishes a safe place for women to go and “take up space,” with restrooms and a small play area in the back to make women and families with children feel comfortable. In Feminist City, Kern describes the Nook as the kind of “third place” urbanists celebrate as “an environment (and, of course, a brand) where people can be alone, together.” The porn stores and (non-artisanal) donut shops close, more cafes like the Nook open, and the construction of new condos echoes over pricey strollers gliding down sidewalks. At first, certain institutions in the Junction neighborhood seem unchanged. The Salvation Army Evangeline Residence, the second-largest women’s center in the city, continues to provide short- to medium-term shelter for up to ninety women. Shelter rules do not allow women to stay in the shelter all day, so they are forced to be in public, where they are “watched constantly” and informally policed by their increasingly affluent neighbors as their “physical appearance, habits, and occasional expressions of mental illness mark them as ‘other.’” A nearby cafe sets a bench outside for customers waiting for a table or reading, and complaints are lodged: the women from the shelter are smoking on the bench. In online forums, the women are called a “freak show.” The cafe owner, who has been donating meals to shelter residents, expresses sympathy for the women at the Evangeline but removes the bench. Increasingly, the women who move to the Junction are different from the women who stay at the Evangeline Residence. White and college-educated, these women face some of the same struggles as the women in the shelter — responsibility for childcare, gendered harassment in public spaces — but they’re spared the long-term and chronic poverty. Still, the story of the café bench drives home one of Feminist City’s more compelling claims: that the harassment and violence women experience in public spaces is linked to the private violence they sometimes experience at home. Even middle-class women found themselves trapped and unable to afford high housing costs without their partners. In other cities, Kern notes, a desire to attract women to city neighborhoods has led to the underreporting or recoding of sexual assaults (as “unfounded” and “investigation of person”), in which “the appearance of safety comes to stand in for the end goal.” Modern Housing The term “third place” refers to spots that are neither home (first place) nor work (second place) but public locations that still allow for individual privacy and space: everything from workers’ clubs, churches, and parks to coffee shops, barbershops, cafés, bars, libraries, and community centers. While third places are ostensibly free of social hierarchies and accessible to everybody, they’re often spaces of consumption and thus exclude those who lack the requisite income. In working-class neighborhoods, that exclusion is minimal — most people can afford to eat at a cheap diner. But in gentrifying neighborhoods — less inexorable, slow-motion catastrophes than the product of exploitative practices driven by real estate capital — the exclusion is essentially the point. Third places have been part of neighborhoods for as long as neighborhoods have existed. As Catherine Bauer writes in Modern Housing, first published in 1934 and newly reissued, communal public spaces are essential to the new minimum dwellings then being constructed in Europe. This “modern housing” varied from city to city, but all boasted basic standards for planning, construction, and administration. America’s housing, by contrast, was a mess: “Congested tenements, wooden three- and four-deckers, and jerry-built, jostling bungalows; foreclosures, evictions, worthless mortgages, tax-delinquencies, and municipal bankruptcy; miles of unused pavement, vacant lots and expensive rotting utilities; a vastly increased and rapidly increasing area of blight and decay; and an oversupply of gadgeted millionaires’ rookeries.” War-weary Europe has “millions of low-rental, high-standard, modem dwellings in communities planned carefully to provide a maximum of amenity, pleasantness, efficiency, and long-time economy.” More than just shelter, these minimum dwellings ensured privacy and dignity for those who lived there, with enough rooms for separate bedrooms for parents and for children of different genders, “relatively soundproof walls,” a humane commute (Bauer specifies not more than thirty minutes from employment), running water and a ventilated toilet, “adequate sun,” ventilation between units, spaces for children to play, and — perhaps most importantly of all — “security of tenure” for tenants and homeowners alike. In Bauer’s mind, modern housing should be considered part of a “national minima,” along with sanitation, clean air and water, education, health care, and social insurance. In the decades since its publication, Modern Housing has been celebrated for bringing Bauhaus ideals and European innovations in architecture and urban design (like the Frankfurt kitchen and garden cities) to American audiences. While Bauer was interested in new technology, she doesn’t position these innovations as solutions for housing shortages. Instead, she spends the majority of Modern Housing demonstrating that housing crises aren’t an accidental market misfortune — a problem of temporarily limited supply, brought on by the market, that could be fixed by rezoning or by building more houses or more efficient housing units — but a normal outcome of capitalism. With a convincing history drawn from newspapers, pamphlets, testimony, and governmental sources, Bauer establishes the nineteenth century as a “failure of civilization,” during which “the Social Contract became largely a code of noninterference with property rights.” In Bauer’s history, periods of sufficient housing supply and adequate housing are rare, and the housing crisis is nearly perpetual, endemic to capitalism. Even during periods of sustained prosperity, real estate speculation has always threatened cities, Bauer writes, citing a seventeenth-century account of property developers. “Thes sort of covetous Buylders exact great renntes, and daiely doe increase them in so muche that a poore handie craftesman is not able by his paynefull laboure to paye the rennte of a smale Tenemente and feede his familie” and “neither regard the good of the Commonwealthe, the preservacion of the health of the Cittie.”
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Post by Admin on Sept 23, 2020 20:58:28 GMT
england.shelter.org.uk/media/press_releases/articles/280,000_people_in_england_are_homeless,_with_thousands_more_at_risk Posted 18 Dec 2019 280,000 people in England are homeless, with thousands more at risk New figures from Shelter reveal 280,000 people are recorded as homeless in England, an increase of 23,000 since 2016 when the charity first published its landmark annual report. Shelter’s extensive analysis of official rough sleeping and temporary accommodation figures, along with social services records, shows that in one in every 200 people are without a home. For the first time, its review of government data has also exposed that close to 220,000 people in England were threatened with homelessness in the last year. Despite being the most comprehensive overview of homelessness in the country, it’s widely known that a lot of homelessness goes undocumented, including sofa-surfing and some rough sleeping. This means the true level of homelessness will be even higher than today’s count. Shelter is warning that unless the new government takes urgent action to address the dire lack of social homes at the crux of this emergency, the situation is likely to get worse. Alongside its bid to get more social housing built, the charity is calling on the public to support its frontline workers as they grapple with huge demand this Christmas. In the last year, a call was made to Shelter’s emergency helpline every 44 seconds and its free webchat service was used almost 26,000 times.
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Post by Admin on Oct 5, 2020 15:53:29 GMT
“We can abolish destitution”: Highlights from the Green Party leaders’ conference addressleftfootforward.org/2020/10/we-can-abolish-destitution-highlights-from-green-party-leaders-conference-address/The Green Party of England and Wales conference has – like all parties – gone virtual, and saw the freshly re-elected co-leaders take to an audience-free stage on Friday. Mayoral candidate Siân Berry and Lambeth councillor Jonathan Bartley delivered their verdict on the government’s coronavirus response, climate breakdown – and the party’s hopes for next year’s big round of elections. Bartley began by echoing a question many of us have been asking: “What the hell is up with 2020?” “Fires in the arctic and the US. Refugees in the channel. Thousands sleeping rough on our streets. A pandemic that has killed a million people… “I was sitting at home a couple of weeks ago, and I switched on “Extinction: the facts” – the David Attenborough documentary. And I found the tears just rolling down my cheeks…Who is not moved by the countless species being lost? How, have we let this mass destruction happen?” Siân Berry said: “It is people of colour and the working class who will suffer disproportionately from climate breakdown. “People of colour and the working class who have always suffered disproportionately from health inequality, social inequality and racism.” She added that it is these people who will are hit hardest by coronavirus, too. On test and trace, Bartley said: “The Government failed. Because it handed the job to a company that couldn’t deliver. Contracting out is what Governments do when they have lost confidence in their own leadership; lost confidence in local communities. “And we won’t get the virus under control without a test and trace system that works in every local area. We have been saying for months that the Government needs to work with local authorities, communities and public health teams. These are the people who can deliver,” she said. Bartley praised the key workers who got Britain through the crisis: “Our most valuable workers recognised as the key workers that they are – running the vital services on which we all rely. He said Britain had seen a ‘glimpse of something new’ in the coronavirus response. “Debt in our NHS paid off. Intervention to support people’s incomes. Rough sleepers off our streets…I think that deep down everyone believes that a different and better world might be possible.” Britain could ‘eliminate poverty’ through a Universal Basic Income, Bartley told viewers. “We have proposed it for years. And it’s an idea whose time has come. A regular, unconditional payment made to everyone. We can make poverty impossible. We can abolish destitution. And give everyone more life choices.” Addressing the Black Lives Matter movement, Bartley called for reparations: “to create global justice and put right the legacy of the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Afrikans, colonial exploitation, and our debt to the world for the pollution we have emitted.” Berry called for ‘dissent’ to unjust government policies. “Our plan for recovery cannot be a re-run of austerity economics…With a Green New Deal and a basic income we can break free from the old thinking for good.” Berry said that the Greens are the ‘political arm of a wider movement’: “Like our country, our party’s history is also one of movements and solidarity. Our party, our values – and our approach to leadership – grew alongside work among movements here in the UK that fought some of the most important battles of the last century. She praised the party’s history: “Standing against unconscionable weapons of mass destruction, and against coal power plants, gas pipelines, oil drilling, fracking and nuclear power,” pointing to more recent campaigning: “We are forging new alliances for green energy and community controlled housing with renters and workers.” She added that 2019’s local elections, which saw the Greens gain 86 seats, were ‘spectacular’. “As a party, we could not be more ready for next year – 2021- to fight more winning campaigns in Wales and in London and in councils across the country. I cannot wait for next May,” the London Mayoral candidate said. “The Green Party is a serious party, a major party now, one with more credibility than ever before, whose ideas and hard work make a difference,” Berry said. Berry presented the Greens as having an important lobbying role: “In London we only have to campaign and pester for two or maybe three years now before the current Mayor takes up our ideas – on things like rent controls, preventing demolition and giving ballots to residents on estates, action on air pollution and traffic, green energy for the tube.” “But we’ll only get change as fast as we need when we have a Green Mayor… Everywhere in the country, as a party now, we must work harder than ever to build our team, we must support each other better, bring forward new people, and train harder together to be ready for the serious and important work of having and using power,” she added. Bartley closed his address with ‘an invitation’: “If you want to shape the future, not repeat the past. If you too feel that this is a moment of truth where every person must play their part. The Green Party is your home, so join us.” Berry ended by saying: “New paths are only made when people take the first steps and walk in a new direction. So join us and let’s take those steps together. Because we – and you – know that better is possible.”
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Post by Admin on Oct 8, 2020 20:14:24 GMT
Rough sleepers in UK will die without government action, doctors warnHomeless people face choice between cold streets and crowded shelters where Covid threat is high, campaigners say www.theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/08/uk-rough-sleepers-will-die-without-government-action-doctors-warnRough sleepers will die this winter without urgent government action as coronavirus and cold weather create a terrifying double threat, doctors and campaigners have warned. Homeless people face a dilemma between staying outside or squeezing into crowded shelters where Covid hygiene will be limited, the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of General Practitioners have told ministers. Alongside charities including Crisis, Shelter and St Mungo’s they want a repeat of the “everyone in” policy adopted in March and April, when 15,000 homeless people were given emergency accommodation, including in hotels, saving an estimated 266 people from death, according to one study. Prof Andrew Hayward, a member of the government’s Sage advisory group and director of UCL’s Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, is among the signatories of a letter that says self-contained accommodation must be a priority. It cited a study from New York showing the risk of dying from Covid-19 for people staying in communal shelters was 61% higher than for the general population. Prof Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “Without urgent action from the government to keep homeless people off the streets this winter, lives will most certainly be lost.” Jon Sparkes, the chief executive of Crisis, said: “Predictions of deaths among people who have nowhere else to go, other than our streets, or sleeping in communal night shelters that are not Covid-secure, must act as a wake-up call to the government. We cannot have hundreds or even thousands of people forced to live in crowded places, where proper social distancing is impossible and the risk of coronavirus transmission is incredibly high.” The letter warns that funding packages for local councils to get people into safe accommodation are drying up. One study of people facing homelessness in London showed that levels of frailty were comparable to 89-year-olds in the general population, it said. It follows a similar call by the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, who this week told the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, that the government was displaying “complacency and inaction”. “With only weeks to go before shelters would normally begin to open, and with one having opened already in London, the government has neither published any guidance to the sector on communal sleeping nor made provision to fund Covid-safe alternatives,” Khan said in a letter. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it is working on operating principles so night shelters, which are currently closed, can be reopened as safely as possible when self-contained accommodation can’t be made available. The spokesperson said: “Working with councils, charities and other partners we will protect vulnerable rough sleepers this winter and fund longer-term accommodation and tailored support to end rough sleeping for good.”
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Post by Admin on Nov 1, 2020 13:21:44 GMT
I tried, and failed, to solve homelessness in Westminster. Here's what I learnedRobert White I’ve seen many good-faith attempts to fix the problem. But we’ve built a system that is trying to solve the wrong thing • Robert White is former lead commissioner for supported housing and rough sleeper services at Westminster city council www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/31/solve-homelessness-westminster-systemFor almost seven years, I worked for Westminster city council to “reduce rough sleeping” – a task that was a lot harder than I had originally anticipated. In my first personal development plan, I wrote, with wide-eyed ambition and perhaps a little naivety, that I intended to end the plight of people living on the streets by 2017. The last annual street count, at the end of November 2019, found 333 people. There’s still some way to go, then. As the lead commissioner, a self-appointed title and rod for my own back, the council needed me to be many things at once. There are lots of powerful voices in a place such as Westminster, some friendlier than others. Quite a number of MPs live locally; by virtue of geography, they would often have a strong word or two to say to the council about people sleeping on the street. Sometimes, they could be caught out for describing people in the most inhumane of ways. I attended forums to talk about clearing the streets, reducing anti-social behaviour, putting an end to begging. I’ve been to meetings where I was encouraged to explore the use of discontinued underground stations as shelter, or to create more hostile environments to discourage sleeping and begging. At the same time, I would be writing specifications encouraging charities to focus on the trauma a person had suffered in their lives. Such conflicting priorities make it impossible to make decisions that benefit people, whether it is the Soho business affected by begging on their doorstep, or the “beggar” themselves, so traumatised by abuse that drug use is their only salvation. There is a prevailing theory in homelessness services that goes like this: if we can categorise, compartmentalise and identify people, we might be able to fix them. This has led to a system of perverse incentives. In my job, one portion of funding would be reserved for people with a mental health diagnosis who might receive supported housing, but would need to move out and away from where they know when they got better. Another pathway could be for verified rough sleepers. The need to verify that someone had slept rough was such as big issue that I was often faced with a situation where homelessness services had to encourage someone to sleep rough just so they could access a service. And if you haven’t hit rock bottom, we likely can’t help you. I don’t believe these approaches come from a particularly bad place. They’re attempts to fix an epidemic. But one thing is clear: they don’t work. Not a week went by in which the latest innovation wasn’t searched for: buses to shelter the homeless; contactless begging to encourage people to give more “wisely”; homeless barbers; homeless vets; homeless GPs; homeless bank accounts for people without a permanent address. All are worthy innovations aimed at correcting a failed system. But should we not be focusing that energy on fixing the system that makes our work necessary in the first place? We’ve forced individuals to internalise these failures as their own. You’ve got no money because because your benefits don’t stretch and the guy in the hostel room next door followed you to the cashpoint and robbed you? I’ve got a great homeless budgeting class you should go to, and if you don’t attend I’m afraid you’re a “non-engager”, but don’t worry, we have a hostel for people like you. We place the onus on individuals to fix themselves, and when they invariably fail in the process, we blame them, rather than the system that produces such problems in the first place. In other words, we’re constantly trying to solve the wrong thing. I’m a very proud dad to two little boys, the eldest of whom has just turned four. For months now he has been annoying his parents by coming into our bed in the early hours and falling asleep with us. We’ve tried numerous things to fix the problem: incentives to stay in his room, education about why it is good to stay where he is, boundaries and acceptable behaviour agreements. It wasn’t until I stayed in his room one night that I realised the real reason he was coming into ours: he wasn’t scared or in need (vulnerable, you might say) – it was just warmer in our room than his. So I fixed the heating system in his room, and now he doesn’t come in. Since I have left the local authority, I can take a longer view of homelessness and how we can solve it. It’s clearer than ever that we need to refocus our aspiration and our mission. We shouldn’t be working as a sector of homelessness charities to end homelessness. The problem is far deeper. We need to dismantle the current system that deals with homelessness, and the way in which people are filtered through it. If we can work together to identify broken power dynamics and walk alongside people to understand what they can do, not what they can’t do, then there is hope. We need to make decisions with people, led by them, not centred on them. We need to treat them as assets, not burdens, and give people back control of their own lives. The pandemic has taught us that we are a nation of people who don’t like to be managed. Yet if you don’t have a place to call home, we will create a system that will manage every element of your life, from where you can charge your phone to what you can have to eat. And you’d better be thankful for it. • Robert White is the former lead commissioner for supported housing and rough sleeper services at Westminster city council and now director of change at the Mayday Trust
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Post by Admin on Nov 23, 2020 21:42:13 GMT
“One thing is sure: Chronic, severe mental illness plays a vital role in the public’s understanding—or misunderstanding—of homelessness. Homelessness did rise with the wave of deinstitutionalization of people with mental illness that began in the late 1960s. This led to the widespread perception that people who live on the streets are doing so because of a serious, preexisting mental illness that precludes them from being able to be employed or house themselves. But the perception is inaccurate. The true cause of the surge in homelessness, according to Martha R. Burt, author of Over The Edge and a social researcher at the Urban Institute, is the housing crisis in this country, which also began in the 1960s with the elimination of inexpensive urban housing. That gave people, including those who were deinstitutionalized, no other option but to live on the streets. This was accompanied by the dissolution of social and economic structures that had sustained low-income people, says Burt, who has been studying the homeless for more than 40 years.” Trauma in Plain Sight Among homeless people, PTSD is widespread and widely overlooked.slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/homeless-life-ptsd-overlooked.htmlThe psychiatrist in the windowless room on the second floor of the rehabilitation center in Utah didn’t say much. He asked a handful of questions, scribbled a few notes on a piece of paper and then, Millie Davidson says, he told her that she needed to take antipsychotics. Given the severity of her diagnosis, she should also sign up for permanent disability benefits, she remembers him saying. Davidson declined the offer even when she saw the doctor’s paperwork, detailing her all-you-can-eat buffet of serious mental health diagnoses, which included schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder. “Deep down, I thought, ‘That couldn’t possibly be me,’ ” says Davidson, who had just emerged from two years of living on the streets. “But I was weak from everything I had gone through and I was just so lost that I also thought, ‘Maybe that could be me.’ If a doctor was telling me this, then maybe he was right.” Turns out he was wrong. Eight years later, in the spring of 2019, in the midst of healing from her collapse into homelessness and the substance abuse that she fell into during that time, Davidson received a drastically different mental health assessment. This one was given by a team of university researchers and doctors, who concluded that Davidson—now a full-time youth leader at an all-girl’s school, a homeowner, and a college student slated to earn her bachelor’s degree this year—has post-traumatic stress disorder. Not schizoaffective disorder and not bipolar disorder. “In short,” the diagnosis stated, “Ms. Davidson presented a psychological profile that matches her life story.” That life story, like those of many homeless people, included an extreme amount of trauma. But the role of trauma and the resulting mental health diagnosis of PTSD is widely ignored in the homeless population, mental health experts say. The result is a debilitating, even life-threatening situations in which homeless people experience or witness traumatic events, yet the effects of those experiences go unacknowledged, undiagnosed, or misdiagnosed. “Chronic homelessness is chronic exposure to stress and chronic exposure to trauma that could lead to PTSD,” G. Robert “Bobby” Watts, chief executive officer of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council in Nashville, Tennessee, told me. “But not all organizations are trauma-informed enough to be able to make the accurate diagnosis.” As a consequence, post-traumatic stress is often overlooked or misdiagnosed as some other psychiatric condition. The people to whom this happens are re-traumatized to such an extent, Watts said, “that the trauma that already existed is exacerbated.” Exacerbated trauma can look like a lot of things. In the realm of PTSD, it can look like going into “flight,” “fright,” or “freeze” mode. This brings up a whole other layer of causation, one in which the question naturally arises: Can untreated PTSD be so detrimental that it renders a homeless person unable to gather their wits to the point where they can escape homelessness? As a formerly homeless woman who “froze” for nearly two years, my answer is a resounding “yes.” There are no national statistics on the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder among homeless people. Even the estimates of how many people suffer from the disorder in mainstream America vary greatly—from 5 million to 24 million.
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Post by Admin on Dec 7, 2020 16:23:53 GMT
After years of Tory neglect rough sleepers face ‘most desperate winter ever’Thousands more could sleep rough this Christmas period as the pandemic has significantly cut down shelter capacity, Labour has warned. leftfootforward.org/2020/12/after-years-of-tory-neglect-rough-sleepers-face-most-desperate-winter-ever/Thousands more could sleep rough this Christmas period as the pandemic has significantly cut down shelter capacity, Labour has warned. With many night shelters now closed due to covid restrictions, the party is urging the government to commit that no one will spend the winter in the streets. The campaign launched by Labour wants to ensure everyone has a safe, Covid-secure place to stay this winter. Research by charity HomelessLink found one third of homeless organisations and local authorities expect to see a decrease in capacity in the coming months, as rough sleepers face ‘their worst winter yet’. Labour’s Shadow Secretary of Housing Thangam Debbonaire called rough sleeping even before the crisis ‘a shameful sign of government failure’. The MP added: “This winter, without the last resort of night shelters, rough sleeping is more desperate than ever. “The Government promised to end rough sleeping for good – it must ensure everyone has a safe, Covid-secure place to stay this winter.” Testimonies from frontline organisations include charities struggling with less than half the usual number of volunteers as well as, in one case, less than a third of night shelter beds available this winter. This means that around 6,500 rough sleepers could be turned away. Chris Wood, assistant director of policy at Shelter, told Left Foot Forward: “No one should have to sleep on the streets, let alone during a deadly pandemic. With the likelihood that more people will lose their jobs and homes in the months to come, the extra funding recently provided by the government to support people sleeping rough is crucial. But a lot more is needed to get everyone safely off the streets.” Mr Wood told that while the government’s initial ‘Everyone In’ during the first lockdown approach brought thousands off the street, many are now turned away because they are not considered in ‘priority need’. He added: “It’s critical access to safe accommodation is not a lottery, it must be there for everyone. With the winter upon us and this virus still at large, the government must make clear councils should accommodate anybody facing the streets.” Another concern is the Home Offices’ plans to deport foreign nationals for sleeping rough, in a move some councils have called ‘cruel’, warning it will play into the hands of human traffickers. Even before the pandemic England’s number of rough sleepers reached a new record after ten years of Conservative governments, up to 4,266 in 2019 from 1,768 in 2010. Last Wednesday, Westminster North MP Karen Buck also raised in the House of Commons the harsh conditions households in temporary accommodation. The Labour MP talked of the 98,300 households in temporary accommodation in June, including 127,240 children, warning that people felt they were ‘being punished’ for being homeless. Buck shared moving accounts of people, often fleeing domestic violence or dealing with medical conditions or mental health issues forced into cramped, squalid and unsafe lodgings. She called for homelessness services in local councils to be fully funded, and for fundamental changes to housing supply and housing support in the social security system. Buck concluded: “Homelessness is always a hellish experience, and the people who endure it are almost by definition already highly vulnerable. “ It should not be a punishment, but my constituents ask me this question again and again: “Why am I being punished for the sin of being homeless?” You can sign Labour’s petition to to give everyone a safe space to stay this winter here. Sophia Dourou is a a freelance journalist
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Post by Admin on Dec 15, 2020 20:39:37 GMT
The Myth of the “Undeserving Poor”: A Conversation with Pat LaMarcheEleanor J. Bader interviews Pat LaMarche lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-myth-of-the-undeserving-poor-a-conversation-with-pat-lamarche/ALTHOUGH WRITER-ACTIVIST Pat LaMarche has never been homeless, she considers herself an ambassador for the approximately seven million US residents who live on the streets, in parks, storage facilities, subways, and shelters. It’s a staggering number — far more than the official homelessness figure of 500,000 cited by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But LaMarche is adamant about the accuracy of the statistic. What’s more, she wants to highlight the fact that three percent of school-aged children — 1.5 million kids in grades pre-K to 12 — currently have no place to call home. This and other jolting details lie at the heart of two books LaMarche has published this year, one for children, Priscilla the Princess of the Park, and the other for adults, Still Left Out in America: The State of Homelessness in the United States. Both provide an insightful and sometimes gut-churning window into the lives of those who are undomiciled. LaMarche’s writing is evocative, richly detailed, and highly descriptive. It’s also angry. LaMarche recently spoke to LARB about her writing and activism. ¤ ELEANOR J. BADER: Let’s start with Priscilla the Princess of the Park. What led you to write a children’s book about homelessness? PAT LAMARCHE: When my grandson Ronan was about to turn six, we were talking about homelessness — I talk about it constantly because it’s my life — and he turned to me and told me I should write a chapter book about homelessness for kids like him. I thought it was a great idea, a way for me to soft-pedal the issue by introducing some of the endearing characters I’ve come to know. Priscilla the Princess of the Park is the first book in a four-part series, sort of like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie. (The second installment was released in mid-November and the next two will come out in 2021.) I see the Priscilla books as a way to tell the story of homelessness differently. The subject is introduced in a way that is sweet, fanciful. It introduces the subject so that it’s not scary. The action unfolds through a diverse group of kids who develop a meaningful relationship with a charming woman named Priscilla, who happens to be homeless. I’ve also worked family homelessness into the narrative so that this aspect of the issue is covered. All told, there is a lot of information in the book about what it means to be without a permanent home. My hope is that adults as well as children will read the series, feel compassion, and then do something to promote housing justice. Are there misconceptions about being homeless that you are trying to dispel in the Priscilla books? Yes. Unfortunately, many people cling to the idea that homelessness and falling into poverty can’t happen to them, that because they work hard, they can’t lose their homes. The poor constantly beat themselves up for this and then society joins in. There are other delusions as well, but if rags to riches is rare, riches to rags is even less common. The poor come from the poor. Things conspire to make life difficult. For example, someone has a home but then something happens, and their 19-year-old daughter has to come home for a few months because things did not turn out as she expected. Now the landlord wants to put them out because of increased occupancy. This happens a lot. Society should provide a safety net, but it doesn’t. During the War on Poverty which ran from 1964 until 1981, legislation was passed creating the food stamp program, Medicaid, Medicare, and the Job Corps. Predictably, poverty in the US fell to 10 percent, the lowest it had been in decades. Then Ronald Reagan was elected president. He identified white people’s prejudices and ramped them up. He introduced the Black “welfare queen” who drives a Cadillac. I don’t know that Reagan knew he was racist, but racism worked well for him. He used racism — and the commonplace assumption that most poor people were Black and Brown — to malign the poor, neglecting to mention that the majority of poor folks are white. It’s even more dastardly. Reagan and other representatives of the wealth class have somehow succeeded in making working-class and middle-class people worry about the crumbs their neighbors are allegedly getting. It’s the promotion and stoking of horizontal hostility. When I ran for governor of Maine in 1998 as the candidate of the Green Party, I was immediately bashed as a tree hugger. I decided to embrace the title and said, “Yes, I’m a tree hugger, but I hug the family tree. Jobs are one branch, the environment, housing, education, food, and health care are other branches.” When you have a healthy family, you make sure everyone has these things. When Trump ran for re-election this fall, he took a page from Reagan and told white people in suburban enclaves that unless he remained in office, poor people of color would move into their towns. Why have these anti-poor and racist tropes remained so potent? There is a long history in the United States of handing benefits to people who want to make wealth. Government policies tend to support the infrastructure for the wealth class to increase their holdings. In the past, low-cost workforce housing — housing for those who work in the factories, fast-food joints, diners, and retail — was built near work sites, so that workers could get to their low-wage jobs fairly easily. Wages were kept low, but because rents were never more than one-third of a household’s income, it was workable. During times of responsible government, this workforce housing was publicly owned. These are the buildings commonly called the projects. Right now, there is no construction of new workforce housing. None has been built since the 1980s, so low-wage workers who can’t get an apartment in public housing because there’s a 10-or-more-year waitlist, but who also can’t afford market-rate rents, are in trouble. They end up living doubled-up, or in shelters, on park benches, or in the woods. But let me get back to racism and classism. The wealth class has been masterful in constructing a villain who is not them. They deflect attention from the fact that they are paying workers too little and are sucking away people’s retirement savings. They use smoke and mirrors to get us to believe that the fault is in us, that we’re to blame for our poverty, lack of savings, or inability to find and keep affordable shelter. Yes, and there’s also the persistent idea that some poor people are deserving while others are not. In my first book, Left Out in America: The State of Homelessness in the United States, which came out in 2006, I wrote about Dignity Village, a program in Oregon for formerly homeless people. There was a sign at the entrance: “The Sturdy Beggars Protect the Deserving Poor.” These concepts — the sturdy beggar, the deserving poor — have given way to the idea of the freeloader. All I can say is that the wealthy are lucky that the poor are not lazy; the poor have built the wealth of thousands, but they have usually not benefited. Worse, there is often a profound lack of respect for people who are poor. It is crazy-making, especially since, even among the poor, there is a caste system. But if COVID-19 has taught us anything, it should be this: that the people who stock our shelves, teach our children, work in nursing homes and hospitals, and grow and pick our food, are as important to the running of the country as government officials and the military. Of course, people in the military get subsidized housing and health care. Shouldn’t the guy or gal flipping our cheeseburgers get the same benefits? Let’s switch gears a bit and talk about the number of people who do not have homes in the United States. You use the figure of seven million. HUD says the total is less than one million. Why is there such a discrepancy? Every January, HUD does what is called a Point in Time survey, where volunteers go out and on one night literally count the number of people they see living on the streets. They ask these people five questions that support stereotypes about who is homeless. They ignore the people in hotels, living doubled-up or tripled-up, or who are not visible to them on this particular evening. So many people are uncounted, including the thousands of women who stay with men in exchange for a place for themselves and their children. Dickinson College, near where I currently live in Pennsylvania, did a study of homeless people in order to learn about them. The homeless were followed for 48 hours straight and what the researchers found was pretty intense. They learned that the average homeless person spends two to two-and-a-half hours a day walking from place to place; two hours waiting in line for food, or for a hot shower or a medical appointment, or to do their laundry. They also spend time helping kids with homework, as well as working at low-wage jobs. People who’ve become homeless due to natural disasters — floods, fires, hurricanes — also spent countless hours a day dealing with FEMA and other agencies. Poor people are always the hardest hit when disaster strikes. They’re likely to live in areas vulnerable to environmental calamity and reside in housing that is not structurally sound. Residents of Puerto Rico and New Orleans are obvious examples. What role can the Priscilla books and Still Left Out play in organizing campaigns to end hunger, homelessness, and poverty? My hope is that both sets of stories will fall into the hands of someone in power who can help make the changes that are necessary. After the horrible fires in Paradise, California, and other towns along the West Coast, filmmaker Ron Howard made a movie about the catastrophe. It ended on a happy note by reporting that 1,000 building permits had been issued to those with the means to rebuild. The film did not mention that more than 20,000 others lacked the financial resources to start over. Worse, if these people don’t pay their current water bills, even though they can no longer live in Paradise, they won’t ever be able to move back because they won’t have access to running water. I sent Priscilla the Princess of the Park and Still Left Out to many people who have power and the influence to change things. They can end poverty and make sure no one is unhoused. I don’t know any other way to deal with homelessness and poverty but to continue talking and writing about it. I simply can’t stop. I know that if the right people read these books, they can make macro-level change. Meanwhile, in the last year, I’ve helped two people find permanent housing. Two. There are at least seven million homeless people, but as my husband reminds me, it would have been seven million and two had I done nothing. ¤ Eleanor J. Bader is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer who focuses on domestic social issues, including homelessness and housing policy, public education, health-care access, and movements for social change. She also writes about socially conscious art, book, and theater. In addition to LARB, her work appears regularly at Truthout,org, progressive.org, Lilith Magazine and blog, Fiction Writers Review, and The Indypendent.
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Post by Admin on Mar 1, 2021 16:40:48 GMT
2,500 people slept rough in England through the pandemic, figures showNew official figures showed rough sleeping declined by a third off the back of the UK Government's Everyone In scheme. But charities have described the statistics as a "best guess" and warned more people will head to the streets as lockdown lifts www.bigissue.com/latest/rough-sleeping-dropped-by-a-third-in-2020-but-charities-warn-rise-to-come/By Liam Geraghty@LGeraghty23 Rough sleeping plunged during the pandemic, according to new official statistics – but charities have warned the figures do not show the full extent of street homelessness in England. In total 2,688 people were estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2020, down 37 per cent on the 4,266 people recorded in 2019. The drop demonstrates the impact of the Everyone In scheme, which saw 37,000 people brought into hotels and emergency accommodation to protect them against the pandemic. The figures come from a one-night count and estimates carried out by councils in October and November, while 9,866 people were protected through Everyone In and large sections of the country were either restricted or in lockdown. Lockdowns have taken income away from hundreds of Big Issue sellers. Support The Big Issue and our vendors by signing up for a subscription. Thangam Debbonaire, Labour’s Shadow Housing Secretary, said: “Nobody should be sleeping rough, especially during a pandemic. “The Government promised to bring ‘everyone in’ but even these partial figures show 2,688 people spent this pandemic on the streets. It is extremely concerning they have not repeated the emergency support for rough sleeping that was in place during the first lockdown. There is a real risk that gains made last year will be lost.” Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick called efforts to end rough sleeping “a moral mission” and an issue which should be “consigned to the history books”. “Our priority [is] ensuring that the 37,000 vulnerable people and rough sleepers our landmark Everyone In programme has helped never return to a life on the street,” he said. “The verified annual figures that we have published today show that we are well on our way and are a testament to the government’s commitment to support the most vulnerable in society backed with the £750 million we have invested in homelessness and rough sleeping this year alone.” 976 candles: One for each person who died while homeless in 2020A candle was laid in Trafalgar Square in memory of every one of the 976 people who lost their life without a stable home in 2020, according to the Museum of Homelessness' Dying Homeless project www.bigissue.com/latest/in-pictures-candlelit-tribute-to-976-people-who-died-while-homeless-in-2020/By Liam Geraghty@LGeraghty23 Even the Covid-19 pandemic could not stop campaigners shining a light on homeless deaths this week. The Museum of Homelessness’ Dying Homeless Coalition – a group of experts, frontline workers and journalists, including The Big Issue – paid a touching tribute to the 976 lives lost without the dignity of a home in 2020. On Tuesday, a candle marking each person – some named in MOH’s harrowing count released earlier this week, others listed merely as unknown – was laid on Nelson’s Column in a deserted Trafalgar Square and St Martin-in-the-Fields church steps in recognition of a life lost too soon. Covid & the Big Issue Impact Report - www.bigissue.com/big-issue-covid-impact-report-2020/This year hit The Big Issue like a train. Until Lockdown, we had a sustainable business that delivered social change and served our readers and vendors. We sold a lot of magazines with a unique voice, great opinions and brilliant access. Coronavirus changed everything. In the immediate hours following March’s lockdown we faced the biggest crisis of our 29 years. In the course of a weekend, we completely recreated the business. We massively accelerated the subscription business, moved into shops, created a digital edition and earned money that could be handed out to vendors. The focus was to extend reach as far as possible in impossible market conditions. If we could do that, we’d make The Big Issue survive AND serve the men and women who relied on us. At The Big Issue, we pride ourselves on our mantra – a Hand Up, not a handout. We offer a means for people to work themselves back to society. Covid meant we had to become, for a time, a handout operation. The Big Issue frontline teams, alongside The Big Issue Foundation (the organisation’s charitable arm) previously operated a nationwide face-to-face support network for vendors. This had to switch to 100 percent remote. Despite the huge emotional toll that brought supporting the most vulnerable people, at their most vulnerable, the frontline team did not buckle. All previous development thoughts and ideas crystallised quickly. From a small number of subs we built a subscription base of 10,000 in 30 days. Armando Iannucci, Chris Packham, Christopher Eccleston, Aisling Bea, Floella Benjamin, Michael Sheen and many more created videos and pushed the message of support through their social channels. They were kind and generous and selfless. As were the readers who answered the call. We moved The Big Issue into shops for the first time ever. We set up deals with Sainsbury’s, Coop, MacColls, Asda, Waitrose and others.
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Post by Admin on Apr 16, 2021 22:11:05 GMT
OPINION & ANALYSIS Addressing America’s Homelessness and Squalor: What We Could Do If We Cared The nation’s homeless could be housed for $10 billion a year, less than the price of one aircraft carrier. by Eleanor Goldfield www.mintpressnews.com/how-housing-authorities-address-americas-homelessness/276696/WASHINGTON, WARD 1 — “I wanna know where the $2.5 million is – that’s my reaction.” Muhsin Boe Luther Umar — or as we call him, Uncle Boe — throws his hands up and shakes his head. In his role as both Resident Council President at Garfield Terrace and D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 1B03 Member, he’s had more than his fair share of dealings with D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA). So I had asked him what his reaction was upon hearing about the recent audit of three DCHA contracts, which found nearly $1.4 million in wasted funds. “You’re talking $1.4, I’m talking about $2.5 million spent on one senior housing building,” he says. Back in 2018, D.C. is said to have spent $2.5 million on “weatherizing” improvements for Garfield Terrace, “$975,000 spent to keep the roof from leaking – it’s still leaking,” Boe says, pointing to the water stains on the ceiling. He went on: That money was supposed to put new light fixtures in the building, which you don’t see. That money was supposed to redo the rooftop area. It wasn’t done. And solar panels that don’t work. And if it’s working, where’s that money going? There’s a monthly payout for solar programs – so where is that money? Or if it don’t work, why doesn’t it work? Where is the money?” We’re standing in the community room on the ninth floor of Garfield Terrace, a senior-citizen public housing building in D.C.’s Ward 1. Cans and boxes of non-perishable food sit ready to give out to residents. Art projects dot the tables and Boe buzzes from the newly painted kitchen to the seeding room to show me all the veggies, fruits and herbs getting ready for potting in the rooftop garden. On either side of the community room, spring is budding and blooming – from strawberries to lemon cucumbers to a ridiculously delicious tasting salad he has me try, chuckling at my wide-eyed reaction.
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Post by Admin on Apr 25, 2021 20:11:18 GMT
NEWS ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH Homelessness and Extreme Weather Are Converging Climate Crises truthout.org/articles/homelessness-and-extreme-weather-are-converging-climate-crises/This story originally appeared in NBC News and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Cedar Rapids, Iowa — Terri Domer knows well what a brewing storm looks like. Domer, 62, an Iowa native, has spent her life watching thunderstorms gather and tornadoes dash across rolling hills. Last August, when the midday sky darkened over the riverside homeless encampment where Domer and four other people spent most nights — built on a sandy bank near downtown, under tall trees — she quickly set about covering up their supplies. A campmate said Domer was overreacting and left for a walk. “Suit yourself,” she told him.
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Post by Admin on Apr 26, 2021 13:32:27 GMT
A WATERSHED RULING ON HOMELESSNESS popularresistance.org/a-watershed-ruling-on-homelessness/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. But Judge Carter had his own ideas, and over the last year has fully immersed himself in the issues and the situation on the ground. Much of LA’s homeless population is concentrated in a 50-block area of the city known as Skid Row, which dates back to the late 1800s when it was a center for “day-rate hotels, bars and brothels” catering to transients riding the trains (it was near the train terminal) and migrant workers. Over time, Skid Row accumulated an increasingly large homeless population, as well as individuals “dumped” there as they were released from jails, prisons, and institutions serving those with mental health issues. But in 1976 the city adopted a “containment” policy for Skid Row, collecting and concentrating what they considered the city’s “undesirable population elements” there and using the police to enforce the containment policy. In 2018, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority commissioned an Ad Hoc Committee on Black People Experiencing Homelessness; at the time, Black people were only 9% of the population of Los Angeles County but 40% of the homeless population there (now it’s 42%). The committee’s report lays out the decades of structural racism in housing policy, policing, employment, health care, education, access to services, and access to opportunities that contributed to the dramatic overrepresentation of Black people within the city’s homeless community. Over the past year he has presided over this case, Judge Carter took it all in. He got out of the courthouse and held hearings in Skid Row, the transcript of which makes for some astounding reading on its own. And then last month the plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to try to force the City and County to finally step up and respond at a scale equal to the problem. Judge Carter didn’t hold a single hearing on the motion, though he points out that he had held plenty of evidentiary hearings over the previous year. Instead, he went off and wrote a 110-page order — essentially he wrote an entire book — granting the preliminary injunction. In doing so he crafted an initial remedy that goes well beyond what the plaintiffs asked for. He required the City and County to perform an audit on all local, state, and federal grant funding; all developers who were funded by the City and County to develop affordable housing; and all funds committed to mental health and substance abuse treatment programs. But that’s just the warm-up. Carter ordered the City and County to provide offers of shelter within 90 days to all unaccompanied women and children in Skid Row; within 120 days for all families there; and within 180 days for everyone there. Further, he required them to offer housing and treatment services to all individuals within Skid Row who are in need of services from the Department of Mental Health or the Department of Public Health. He also required them to offer support services to all who accept shelter offers. To enable that, Judge Carter ordered the city to place $1 billion in escrow; ordered the cessation of all sales or transfers of public lands; ordered a report within 30 days on specific actions to address the structural barriers that have led to the overrepresentation of Black people among the homeless population; and ordered Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti and County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda Solis to explain why they have not declared an emergency related to homelessness in order to expedite solutions. Generally speaking, courts have ruled that individual residents do not have a right to demand aid from their government; however, there is one important exception: when the government was an active, willing, and knowing participant in creating the conditions that lead to the need for aid. This is known as the “state-created danger” doctrine. Judge Carter invokes this as the primary justification for his sweeping order: that Los Angeles created layers of structural racism that deprived Black people of opportunity, and it had an explicit policy of concentrating the homeless population in Skid Row and then depriving them of services. Judge Carter’s order is an amazing read, and it starts by citing Abraham Lincoln: In the ebb of afternoon sunlight, young Americans looked at their former compatriots as adversaries as they advanced towards them. Young teenagers carried battle flags to rally upon in the chaos that would soon ensue. There is nothing free about freedom. It is borne from immense pain, suffering, and sacrifice. Our country has struggled since the Emancipation Proclamation to right the evil of slavery. One hundred and fifty-eight years ago, at the site of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made a short and profound speech, exemplifying an unshakable moral commitment to end the abomination of slavery despite the terrible sacrifice of life. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. … It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government, of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. The Civil War brought a formal end to the institution of slavery, but a century and a half after the Gettysburg Address, the “unfinished work” of which President Lincoln spoke remains woefully unfinished. Here in Los Angeles, how did racism become embedded in the policies and structures of our new city? What if there was a conscious effort, a deliberate intent, a cowardice of inaction? Through redlining, containment, eminent domain, exclusionary zoning, and gentrification — designed to segregate and disenfranchise communities of color — the City and County of Los Angeles created a legacy of entrenched structural racism. As shown most clearly in the present crisis of homelessness, the effects of structural racism continue to threaten the lives of People of Color in Los Angeles. It’s clear that the judge knows he’s making a bold play in using his judicial powers to push the City and County out of decades of inaction, but he in no way shies away from the higher call. He ends his ruling by once again calling Lincoln to mind as he lays out a “way forward”: There can be no defense to the indefensible. For all the declarations of success that we are fed, citizens themselves see the heartbreaking misery of the homeless and the degradation of their City and County. Los Angeles has lost its parks, beaches, schools, sidewalks, and highway systems due to the inaction of City and County officials who have left our homeless citizens with no other place to turn. All of the rhetoric, promises, plans, and budgeting cannot obscure the shameful reality of this crisis — that year after year, there are more homeless Angelenos, and year after year, more homeless Angelenos die on the streets. Like Abraham Lincoln’s call to action in his Gettysburg address, it is for us “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far nobly advanced.” Let us pick up that flag, and have the courage of those who fought so long ago, to act so that we can become a better nation and people. This ruling will shake Los Angeles’ government to the bone over the coming months and years, and it will likely have repercussions for how all U.S. cities, including Seattle, look at their struggles to address homelessness. Judge Carter’s Order Granting a Preliminary Injunction against the City and County of Los Angeles Kevin Schofield is a freelance writer and the founder of Seattle City Council Insight, a website providing independent news and analysis of the Seattle City Council and City Hall. He also co-hosts the “Seattle News, Views and Brews” podcast with Brian Callanan, and appears from time to time on Converge Media and KUOW’s Week in Review.
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