Homelessness in America: A Human Rights Crisis
![handle is hein.journals/jls13 and id is 525 raw text is: HOMELESSNESS IN AMERICA: A HUMAN RIGHTS CRISIS
MARIA FoSCARINIS1
I. INTRO DUCTIO N ............................................................................... 5 15
II. THE HOMELESSNESS CRISIS ........................................................... 516
II. THE HUMAN RIGHT TO HOUSING ................................................... 519
IV. INTERNATIONAL VENUES AND PROCESSES .................................... 521
V. LOCAL HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY .............................................. 523
A . C hicago .................................................................................... 523
B . M innesota ................................................................................. 523
C . Salt Lake C ity ........................................................................... 524
D . Sacram ento ............................................................................... 525
VI. INTERNATIONAL M ODELS ............................................................... 526
A . Scotland .................................................................................... 526
B. Republic of South Africa .......................................................... 526
V II. C ONCLUSIO N .................................................................................. 527
I. INTRODUCTION
Before the foreclosure crisis and recession began in 2007, an
estimated 2.5 to 3.5 million people were homeless each year. Since then,
things have gotten much worse. In 2011 alone, on average, cities across
the country reported that family homelessness increased by sixteen
2
percent. In many communities, tent cities are going up.
These developments mirror, in their scope and impact, the dramatic
growth in homelessness that took place in the early 1980s. That earlier
1. Executive Director, National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. The author
is grateful to her colleagues, Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director, and Julie
Butner, a former Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy (PHRGE) Fellow
at Northeastern University School of Law, for their assistance. For an earlier version of
this article, see Maria Foscarinis, The Human Right to Housing: Housing and
Homelessness Are Human Rights Issues-And That Can Be an Organizing Strength,
SHELTERFORCE, Dec. 14, 2011, http://www.shelterforce.org/article/2485/the-human_
rightto-housing/.
2. U.S. DEP'T OF HOUSING & URBAN DEv., THE 2011 POINT-IN-TIME ESTIMATES OF
HOMELESSNESS: SUPPLEMENT TO THE ANNUAL HOMELESS ASSESSMENT REPORT TO
CONGRESS 1, 2 (2011) [hereinafter 2011 POINT-IN-TIME ESTIMATES OF HOMELESSNESS],
http://www.hudhre.info/documents/PITHlC-SupplementalAHARReport.pdf (reporting
the point-in-time estimate counts people as homeless who are sleeping in shelter or
transitional housing, defined as housing with services where homeless people can stay for
up to twenty-four months, or safe havens, defined as long-term, small scale housing for
homeless people with severe mental illness, or in parks, on sidewalks, in abandoned
buildings, or other places not meant for human habitation).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jls13&div=27&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Homelessness in America: A Human Rights Crisis
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most