LITIGATION MANUAL SUPPLEMENT: Criminalization of Homelessness Case Summaries 2022 DOWNLOAD PDF Summary Despite a lack of affordable housing and shelter space, governments have chosen to threaten, arrest, and ticket homeless persons for performing life-sustaining activities – such as sleeping or sitting down - in outdoor public space. In addition to an increasing number of laws that civilly and criminally punish homelessness, governments also regularly displace people experiencing homelessness from public space – a practice commonly called “sweeps” – and seize their personal property. We refer to these punitive policies collectively as the criminalization of homelessness. [...]

Lawsuit Challenges Exclusionary Parking Laws Designed to Run Homeless Persons Out of Town FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Karianna Barr Director of Development & Communications 202-638-2535 kbarr@homelesslaw.org (August 30, 2021, Washington, D.C.) – Last Friday, legal organizations in California and Washington joined to protect the constitutional rights of people living in vehicles by filing a brief as amici curiae with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Potter v. City of Lacey. The federal lawsuit challenges a City of Lacey, Washington law that prohibits parking recreational vehicles for more than four hours each day and authorizing [...]