UN Committee Calls for U.S. to Take Action on Laws Criminalizing Homelessness








September 2, 2014    
ISSUES  |  POLICY  |  SOLUTIONS  |  NEWS & EVENTS Forward Editor: Emanuel Cavallaro


Spotlight On...
UN Committee Calls for U.S. to Take Action on Laws Criminalizing Homelessness


The United Nations (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination today issued a statement calling upon the United States to take corrective action to address laws that effectively criminalize homelessness, which in the U.S. disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities. The statement was included as part of the committee's concluding recommendations following a review of U.S. government compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Among the laws cited as discriminatory were laws that prohibit activities such as loitering, camping, begging, and lying in public spaces.





In a report released today, "Housing Older Adults," Harvard's Joint Center of Housing Studies warned that high housing costs could force millions of older adults to sacrifice spending on necessities like food and health care. The report also warns that the existing housing inventory in the U.S. is insufficient to meet the growing need for affordable and accessible housing for adults 50 and over.
Among the report's findings:
  • A third of adults ages 50 and over are already housing cost burdened, paying more than 30 percent of their income for housing.
  • Older adults who are severely housing cost burdened spend 43 percent less of their income on food and 59 percent less on health care than their stably housed counterparts.
On Tuesday, August 26, the Department of Veteran Affairs, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness announced that veteran homelessness has declined 33 percent since 2010. In this post, we look at the declines we will need to achieve in the next two years in order to meet the Administration's goal of ending veteran homelessness by the end of 2015.
Here Are the Transformation Talks from Our 2014 National Conference
By naehblog
At our 2014 National Conference, we adopted a new speaking format for the final day of our conference, which we called "Transformation Talks." In this post, we introduce videos of each of these three brief talks on the role of faith-based organizations in ending homelessness, the connection between housing and healthcare, and why "bureaucracy" shouldn't be considered a dirty word.

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