There are particular laws and policies that explicitly target and harm people experiencing homelessness. These include camping bans, sit/stand ordinances, and the plethora of other “quality of life” laws. These laws criminalize the state of being homeless. They saddle people […]
Category: Racial Inequalities
Centering Racial Equity in the Greater New Orleans CoC
Author: Shercole King and Garrick Rattler, on behalf of UNITY’s Racial Equity Task Force Picture Credit: Press Street of New Orleans, Painted by NOCCA Students. Photographer: Shercole King “I knew then, and I know now, when it comes to justice, […]
Reinstating Fair Housing Rules: A Win for Housing Access
The Biden Administration recently moved to reinstate two key fair housing rules that had been gutted under the former administration. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is looking to restore the disparate impact rule, a legal standard in housing cases that weigh discriminatory effects regardless of intent, and the 2015 affirmatively furthering fair housing rule (AFFH) meant to guide local jurisdictions on compliance with […]
New Report Shows Rise in Homelessness in Advance of COVID-19 Crisis
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress (Part 1) shows that 580,466 people were counted as homeless during the 2020 Point-in-Time count, representing a 2.2% increase over 2019. This marks the fourth consecutive annual increase in homelessness, following sustained […]
Homelessness and Black History: Poverty and Income
This is the fourth installment in a series of posts examining the historic roots of homelessness and African Americans. Prior posts can be found here, here, and here. Both poverty and income strongly correlate with race in the United States. Among all racial groups, Black Americans are […]