From Plan to Action

Last month, the U. S. Interagency Council on Homelessness released the Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness.

It's an important document and a significant step forward in national policy to address homelessness. It includes a comprehensive description and analysis of the breadth of the crisis of homelessness and housing instability in America, frames solutions including housing, jobs and health care correctly, and calls for unprecedented cooperation among all 19 of the interagency council's member agencies, as well as partnerships between federal and state and local governments across the country. The plan emphasizes the importance of housing in particular as the foundation on which all other solutions depend, and in many ways reflects the input of the Law Center and other advocates.

But the plan lacks specifics on how it will implement those solutions, and does not commit the Administration to any specific funding requests beyond the 2011 budget. Without such specifics, it is difficult to assess how successful it will be in meeting the goal of ending homelessness. And the plan makes no commitment to implement the human right to housing, missing a key opportunity to embrace a framework that would hold it accountable to securing the resources it needs to meet its goals.

In Washington, DC, "fiscal constraints" are becoming the accepted, conventional wisdom - and the justification for shying away from new resources to meet urgent human needs - just months after Congress spent hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out banks and insurance companies. As advocates, it is essential that we reject this paradigm and the priorities it reflects.

With our advocacy partners and allies, the Law Center will work to turn the Council's strong plan into strong action - including adequate funding. Because ensuring that all Americans have a home is not optional: it is a basic human right.

Counting how many people are homeless in the United States is a difficult task, one that is heavily dependent on how homelessness is defined and what methodology is used for counting. However, federal government efforts to quantify the nature and scope of homelessness are important, as they give us insight into trends among the homeless population between one year and the next.

Both HUD and the U.S. Department of Education (DoE) have recently released new data on homelessness. HUD's 2009 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress offers both point in time and annual estimates of homelessness, while the DoE's Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program Data Collection Summary provides data on the number of homeless students identified and enrolled in public schools during the 2008-09 academic year.

Both documents confirm what the Law Center's partners from across the country have been telling us - that family homelessness is rising due to the recession and the related foreclosure crisis. HUD's data tell us that family homelessness rose 7% last year, and 30% since 2007, while DoE numbers show a 41% increase in the number of homeless students between 2007-2009. HUD's report also showed that individual homelessness was down slightly last year, though the entire drop was due to a dramatically reduced count reported by the City of Los Angeles - a count that the report acknowledges to be methodologically suspect.

Release of this sobering data urges forward the Law Center's ongoing work to enforce the educational rights of homeless children and youth and to implement Opening Doors, the new federal plan to end homelessness, by ensuring that everyone who lacks safe, decent, affordable housing can obtain it.

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty recognized the efforts of its LEAP firms at "Ending Homelessness through Pro Bono Work" panel and reception last week. The event was held at the Washington, DC office of Sidley Austin LLP.

Partners from Dechert LLP, Simpson Thacher and Bartlett LLP, and Hogan Lovells LLP participated in a panel discussion on their firms' pro bono work with the Law Center and its ability to create policy change and end homelessness in the United States. The panel was followed by a reception in honor of the Law Center's LEAP partner firms, which featured an address by DC Bar President Ronald S. Flagg.

Lawyers' Executive Advisory Partners (LEAP) is a national philanthropic effort of the legal community to help homeless and poor Americans achieve self-sufficiency. LEAP members work to prevent and end homelessness by providing the Law Center with financial support as well as pro bono legal services. The members form a network of key influential leaders that realize significant positive social change. The Law Center is tremendously grateful for the support of its LEAP firms and thanks all who made this event a success.

For more information about LEAP membership, contact Development & Communications Director Whitney Gent.

Last month, the Law Center released Staying Home: The Rights of Renters Living in Foreclosed Properties, a report that surveyed the legal landscape for tenants one year after the passage of the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act. The PTFA was the first federal law to shield renters from the effects of foreclosure, including a requirement that landlords provide a minimum of 90 days notice before evicting a tenant living in a foreclosed property. However, as we noted in Staying Home, the PTFA is far from perfect. While 16 states have passed additional renters' rights laws in the last year, and another 21 are considering pending legislation, Congress has failed to close loopholes or clear up the vague phrasing that has spawned countless PTFA violations and dozens of lawsuits around the country - until now.

Tenants and advocates have been voicing their concerns to lawmakers since the original PTFA was enacted, and now it seems that Congress is ready to act. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, currently stalled in the Senate, includes important updates to the PTFA. First, it would extend the effects of the revised PTFA for two years, until December 31, 2014, providing critical protection for renters struggling with the impact of the foreclosure crisis.

In addition, the Dodd-Frank Act would clarify the opaque notice requirements in the original law. The first version of the PTFA pinned its protections to the date of a "notice of foreclosure." Banks and other successors quickly asserted that any communication to a landlord that hinted at the possibility of foreclosure, including default notices, met this requirement. According to this interpretation, tenants who signed their leases after the landlord received any such notices were not protected by the PTFA - even when the lease was entirely valid. The Dodd-Frank Act would make it clear that the operative notice date is that on which the title to the property is actually transferred as the result of a foreclosure, a bright line rule that simplifies the requirements for all parties involved and extends benefits to all bona fide tenants.

While we applaud these potential changes, they will not begin to protect tenants until the Senate passes Dodd-Frank and the President signs it into law. While it is frustrating to see such an important piece of legislation delayed for political reasons, we have every reason to believe that the bill, and the PTFA reforms it contains, will pass this summer.

For more information, contact Housing Attorney Geraldine Doetzer.

On Thursday, July 29th, at 3:30 p.m. EDT, the Law Center and the National Coalition for the Homeless will host a webinar to discuss topics explored in the recently released report, A Place at the Table: Prohibitions on Food Sharing with Homeless People. The report focuses on cities that have created ordinances, policies, and tactics to limit groups from sharing food with homeless people, and highlights alternatives to those restrictions.

Webinar presenters will include:

• Sarah Owens, Chief Executive Officer of Community Cooperative Ministries, Inc., a group which advocated against city legislation that would have criminalized food sharing in Ft. Myers, FL.
• Jonathan Lee, founder of Swipes for the Homeless, a program that donates unused university student meals to homeless people.
• Sarah Shubitowski from the Law Center and Donna Leuchten from NCH, co-authors of A Place at the Table.

The goal of the webinar is to provide local advocates with practical tips, advice, and support to work collaboratively with the city government to address food sharing concerns. Additionally, it will give participants a closer look at an innovative and replicable program that engages students in addressing hunger in their community.

To register for this webinar click here. For more information about registration, contact Sarah Shubitowski of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty at 202-638-2535.

The Law Center joined a coalition of groups, including the Charlotte County Homeless Coalition and the National Coalition for the Homeless, that successfully advocated to oppose a proposed anti-lodging ordinance that was under consideration by the Charlotte County, Florida, Board of Commissioners. On July 13, 2010, three of the five Commissioners voted against passing the ordinance.

The anti-lodging ordinance would have prohibited homeless persons from sleeping outside in public spaces anywhere in the county. The Law Center stood in opposition to the ordinance by pointing to its constitutional and policy problems, and encouraging the County to consider a more constructive approach to homelessness, such as developing more housing resources.

Some courts have ruled that punishing homeless persons for sleeping outside when no shelter space or affordable housing is available violates their constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Further, arresting or citing homeless people under these types of measures only perpetuates their homelessness, as obtaining housing and employment can be more difficult once a person has a criminal record.

"We are very pleased to see that the majority of the Charlotte County Commissioners decided against an ordinance that would have had a truly harmful impact on the County's homeless residents," said Tulin Ozdeger, the Law Center's Civil Rights Director. "We hope that more cities will follow their lead in rejecting these very counterproductive measures."

To learn about more legal challenges to the criminalization of homelessness, click here.

On Thursday, July 1st, Feeding America released a new study entitled Child Food Insecurity in the United States: 2006-2008 to bring to light the growing problem of child hunger. The report indicates rising child hunger rates, as nearly every state saw an increase in child hunger in 2008. Among the states with the highest child food insecurity rates are Arkansas, Texas, and Arizona. The states with the greatest child food insecurity increasesare Arkansas, Florida, and Arizona.

Food insecurity is defined as "limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways." Food insecurity and hunger can put a child's growth, development, and overall health at risk.

This report has significant implications when compared to the Law Center's recently released A Place at the Table: Prohibitions on Sharing Food with People Experiencing Homelessness. The Law Center's report includes food sharing restrictions in specific areas, such as cities in Arkansas, Florida, and Arizona, where child food insecurity is the highest. Such restrictions only exacerbate problems of food insecurity for families.

Click here for more information on the Law Center's children and youth program, including our work on the Child and Adult Care Food Program.

Mark your calendar for the Law Center's 12th annual McKinney-Vento Award reception and dinner on October 14, 2010 at the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington D.C.

Award recipients include best-selling author Barbara Ehrenreich, the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, and Dechert LLP. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan will deliver a keynote address.

On October 13-14, 2010, the Law Center will also host the National Forum on the Human Right to Housing at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.

For questions or sponsorship opportunities, contact Whitney Gent or Jessica Libbey at 202-638-2535.

In the last two months, the Law Center has welcomed several talented new staff members. We're excited to have Jeremy Rosen, formerly the executive director of the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness, as the Law Center's new policy director. Jeremy has 12 years of experience doing policy advocacy work on homelessness issues and has already written a number of compelling pieces on the Law Center's blog.

Geraldine Doetzer is the new housing attorney at the Law Center. This new position focuses on the impact of the foreclosure crisis and federal surplus property programs. Geraldine was previously the Equal Justice America fellow at the Legal Aid Justice Center, where she founded a public benefits practice serving low-income clients in Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia.

Taunya Melvin is serving as the Law Center's new director of operations. With more than ten years' experience in non-profit operations management, Taunya comes to us from Sasha Bruce Youthwork in Washington, DC.

NLCHP is a 501(c)(3) organization. Contact us at (202) 638-2535 or email us at nlchp@nlchp.org

Please visit our website at http://www.nlchp.org