Federal Police Use Violent Force Against Family Living in Park – Pattern of Violence Continues Forest Service Police Injured Disabled Family Members Washington, D.C. | August 23, 2023 - The National Coalition for Housing Justice (NCHJ) calls on the Biden-Harris administration to stop using federal police to respond to homelessness. In May of this year, undercover U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management police officers violently arrested Judy, Timber, and Brooks Roberts for living in a camper in the Payette National Forest north of Boise, Idaho. They were forced to live in the park after [...]

National Homelessness Law Center Responds to Murder of Jordan Neely  (May 5, 2023, Washington, DC) – The National Homelessness Law Center is outraged over the strangulation and murder of Jordan Neely Monday, May 1, 2023.  The Law Center condemns the NYPD, Mayor Eric Adams, and Governor Kathy Hochul for their failure to hold Jordan’s vigilante killer responsible, and for their subsequent efforts to shield his murderer and smear a murder victim.  But these government officials’ statements and actions are symptomatic of the broader problem that led to this tragedy—a toxic cultural obsession with anti-Blackness and dehumanization of the poor.     As the national legal group dedicated to ending and preventing homelessness, we seek to elevate a reality already deeply understood by unhoused communities and their allies: that racialized, state-sanctioned brutality occurs with disproportionate force and frequency against both the [...]

Statement of the National Homelessness Law Center on Planned Eviction of McPherson Square Encampment   (February 13, 2023) On February 2, the DC government announced that the McPherson Square encampment community in downtown D.C. will be forcibly evicted on February 15, two months earlier than previously announced and in the midst of hypothermia season. The planned eviction of more than 70 unsheltered D.C. residents comes after the D.C. Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Wayne Turnage requested the National Park Service expedite the clearing. The planned eviction directly conflicts with the federal Plan to End [...]