January 2020 SUBSCRIBE Dear Friends— Happy 2020! Here’s to a great new year for all of us, and for our work to end the injustice of homelessness. I want to share highlights of our plans for the new year: We will work to implement our landmark victory in Martin v. Boise. We had an exciting end to 2019 when the Supreme Court decided not to hear Boise v. Martin, letting stand the Ninth Circuit ruling, which ensures that no one experiencing homelessness can [...]

December 2019 SUBSCRIBE Dear Friends— As we reach the end of 2019, a year that marked our 30th anniversary, I’m reflecting on all we accomplished. It’s been an amazing year of activism and impact, all toward our common goal of ending and preventing homelessness. We won a landmark victory in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Martin v. Boise, which ruled that criminally punishing homeless people for sleeping outside when there are no other options is unconstitutional. And as [...]

November 2019 SUBSCRIBE Dear Friends— I’m writing during Hunger and Homelessness Awareness week, and just before our annual McKinney-Vento Awards event—which also aims to raise awareness as well as funds to support our work for solutions. These events are critical reminders. But homelessness is a crisis every day and night of the year: Each year, one in 10 young adults aged 18-25 experiences homelessness, with Black LBGTQ youth experiencing the highest rates. During the 2016-17 school year—the latest for which we have this [...]

October 2019 SUBSCRIBE Dear Friends— In the District of Columbia, our organizational home, thousands of unaccompanied minors experience homelessness each year. They may have legal rights that give them access to health care, housing, and education, and that protect them from arrest for truancy and other status crimes. But they are unlikely to often know what those are or how to assert them. That’s why we’ve partnered with pro bono legal teams at The Walt Disney Company and Baker McKenzie to create a [...]

September 2019 SUBSCRIBE Dear Friends— “Homelessness is a disgrace.” As someone who has spent over three decades working to end homelessness in America, I couldn’t agree more with this recent statement from President Trump. But the ideas under consideration for addressing it, outlined in a new white paper from the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, are deeply concerning. Homelessness is a crisis, not just in California, where the President seems to be focusing his attention, but across the country. Steep increases in housing [...]

August 2019 SUBSCRIBE Dear Friends— I’m writing as we’ve just said good-bye to our summer interns, and it’s an especially poignant moment. Our interns—both law and undergraduate did stellar work for us, and you can read about them here. And their energy, commitment and dedication to social justice are a source of inspiration to all of us and to me personally. Last month, we celebrated the Law Center’s 30 years of impact—making a difference in the lives of millions of people. The interns [...]

July 2019 SUBSCRIBE Dear Friends— This year we’re celebrating the Law Center’s 30th anniversary and I’m looking back as well as forward. In 1996, a UN conference in Istanbul, where I traveled along with a small group of other US advocates, made clear what much of the world already knew: housing is not only a basic human need, it is also a basic human right recognized by the law of nations. That was the start of the Law Center’s work to move forward [...]

June 2019 SUBSCRIBE Dear Friends— Earlier this month, at our annual National Forum on the Human Right to Housing, participants from around the country came together to share ideas, strategies, and inspiration to move forward our work for Housing Not Handcuffs. It was an amazing group of people. Participants included homeless and formerly homeless people whose lives have been directly affected by both criminalization and the lack of housing; police officers who stand with us in support of housing not handcuffs; lawyers and [...]

May 2019 SUBSCRIBE Dear Friends— Every year, the Law Center’s work benefits from thousands of hours of donated legal services from our pro bono partners. We just got the numbers for 2018, and I’m excited to share that last year alone, volunteers at law firms and corporate legal departments contributed over 7000 hours! Our pro bono partners worked with Law Center lawyers on a wide range of projects, including: A 50-state Index on Youth Homelessness that supports a campaign to reform state laws [...]

April 2019 SUBSCRIBE Dear Friends— Earlier this month, the Law Center and our partners won another big victory in our fight against the criminalization of homelessness. The federal court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected an effort to review our earlier outcome in Martin v. Boise, meaning that our landmark victory stands. This victory has the potential to transform local government responses to visible homelessness in cities across the country—if we mobilize to capitalize on it. The court ruling tells cities in [...]