the 13th juror

Denying housing over criminal record may be discrimination, Feds say

2016-04-04T17:29:00.000-04:00

It may be getting easier for people with criminal records to find housing.

In new guidance, the Department of Housing and Urban Development tells landlords that turning down tenants or buyers based on their criminal records may violate the Fair Housing Act.

People with criminal records aren't a protected class under the Fair Housing Act, and the guidance from HUD's general counsel says that in some cases, turning down an individual tenant because of his or her record can be legally justified.

But blanket policies of refusing to rent to anybody with a criminal record are de facto discrimination, the department says — because of the systemic disparities of the American criminal justice system.

Read the NPR report here.

OMG! Homeless people are sleepingand bathing at the Orlando airport

2014-12-26T21:34:00.000-05:00

Some Orlando airport employees have contacted the media to report that homeless people are using the airport's first level to sleep and even bathe in the public bathrooms -- and that's upsetting travelers.

"It is an issue," said Norma McCann, who's on vacation from West Virginia. "They're going to starting picking up people's things that walk away for a second. It's just extra people being in a place they don't belong."

Airport officials said that although people coming in and sleeping in the airport is not a growing problem, they did see an "increase in instances."

In the past week, four people were asked to leave the airport and given a bus pass to do so.

Read the News13 report here.

Actually, it's been known among homeless folks for a long time that the airport is a pretty good place to clean up and to get some rest, so long as you are reasonably presentable and can pass for a tourist.

Outrage forces Marseille to scrap yellow triangle IDs

2014-12-05T21:57:00.000-05:00

Authorities in Marseille were blasted for its plan to issue its homeless with ID cards featuring yellow triangles that detail their health issues.

Although the initiative was aimed at making it easier for health workers to know what they were dealing with in emergency situations, human rights groups and government ministers were equally outraged, comparing the cards to the Nazi-era yellow Star of David that was sewn onto Jewish people’s clothes during the Holocaust.

And the uproar put an end to the scheme on Friday when authorities in Marseille confirmed that they were scrapping the plan.

Read the report in The Local here. And see previous post here.

French homeless forced to wear 'yellow triangles'

2014-12-04T21:49:00.000-05:00

Arnaud, a homeless man, wears the controversial yellow triangle. Photo: AFP/Anne-Christine Poujoul.

Authorities in France’s second-largest city have come under fire for issuing its homeless with ID cards that detail their health issues.

Human rights groups and government ministers have slammed the “yellow triangle cards”, comparing them to the Nazi-era Star of David that was sewn onto Jewish people’s clothes during the Holocaust.

“This is scandalous, it’s stigmatizing,” said Christophe Louis, president of the homeless charity Collectif Morts de la Rue. “Being identified by either a star or a triangle is horrific.”

French human rights group La Ligue des droits de l’Homme said it was troubled by the resemblance “of this card and the yellow star that the Jews had to wear during World War II.” President François Hollande’s government in Paris has also reacted sharply to the initiative.

Read the report in The Local here.

You can't get food in Florida but you can shower in the Vatican

2014-11-14T00:53:00.001-05:00

The Vatican has announced that Pope Francis plans to build showers for the homeless in St. Peter's Square.

The endeavor is a joint project being undertaken by Francis and Archbishop Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner who, according to Religion News Service, is responsible for overseeing charitable acts on behalf of the pope.

The Vatican's deputy spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said that construction on showers is scheduled to begin next week. The showers would be added to renovated public restrooms located near the marble columns that led into the basilica, which dated back to 1626.

From Talking Points Memo.

California city bans homeless from sleeping outside: If they leave, ‘then that’s their choice’

2014-11-10T01:14:00.000-05:00

Two ordinances aimed at clearing out the homeless population have been passed unanimously by the city council of Manteca, California.

One will ban people from sleeping or setting up encampments on any public or private property as of December 4, although the homeless won’t be jailed or fined. It will, however, allow the police to tear down any homeless sleeping areas as soon as they appear without having to be invited by the property owner, as was the case previously.

Explaining why the ordinance is necessary, Police Chief Nick Obligacion said, “The goal is actually to correct the wrong. So, if the correction is them leaving Manteca, then that’s their choice.” He also opposes any sort of shelter for the homeless.

The other ordinance bans public urination and defecation, but also comes after the city temporarily closed public restrooms in a park, a location often used by the homeless to relieve themselves in private.

Read more at Think Progress.

“Why do they waste their money on junk food?” If you've ever said that, you need to read this

2014-09-30T20:41:00.001-04:00

As a nation, we’re slowly realizing that whole, fresh foods are good for you and that cooking at home can save you money and provide you with better nutrition.

Overall, this is a great trend. It’s becoming easier and more common to get fresh food, whole foods, local foods, and organic foods.

Unfortunately, though, this shift in culture has also begun to produce a toxic byproduct: better-than-thou attitudes and judgments about low-income people’s decisions about food.

“Why do they waste their money on junk food?” “Why doesn’t she cook for her children?” “Ugh, look, he’s buying his toddler a Happy Meal.”

Many of us have thought things like this or heard other people say things like this. We are very concerned with how poor people (or people we assume are poor) spend money on food.

The truth is, though, we rarely have all the facts when we judge these people. Let’s change that. Read more at everyday feminism.

LA's homeless allowed to live in cars, appeals court rules

2014-06-20T21:03:00.000-04:00

A federal appeals court has struck down Los Angeles’ ban on homeless people living in vehicles, declaring that the law “opens the door to discriminatory enforcement” against the poor.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the city’s ordinance, which bans people from living in cars or recreational vehicles on city streets or in parking lots, is unconstitutionally vague.

“This broad and cryptic statute criminalizes innocent behavior, making it impossible for citizens to know how to keep their conduct within the pale,” Judge Harry Pregerson wrote for the court.

The ban “is broad enough to cover any driver in Los Angeles who eats food or transports personal belongings in his or her vehicle,” the court said. “It appears to be applied only to the homeless.”

The ordinance can be violated even if somebody is not found sleeping in a vehicle and even if the car is not filled with loads of personal belongings, the court said. “There is no way to know what is required” to violate it, Pregerson wrote.

Despite attempts by the homeless to comply with the law, “there appears to be nothing they can do to avoid violating the statute short of discarding all of their possessions or their vehicles, or leaving Los Angeles,” the ruling said.

Read the Los Angeles Times report here. Read the court's decision here.

If homeless people had a safe place to live, taxpayers could save millions

2014-06-07T22:10:00.002-04:00

In a world where money talks, evidence that putting a roof over someone's head is a boon to city budgets could be the incentive cities need to build housing for the homeless.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina–Charlotte's Department of Social Work have found that housing constructed specifically for homeless people saved the city millions.

Providing housing at an 85-unit facility called Moore Place resulted in 447 fewer visits to emergency rooms and 372 fewer days spent in hospitals. That alone saved the city $1.8 million -- which makes plenty of sense. When people aren't exposed to danger from criminals or animals, and they don't get sick from sleeping in a doorway on a cold night, they're bound to be healthier.

Law enforcement costs were also reduced. Providing housing to Moore Place residents resulted in an incredible "78 percent drop in arrests and 84 percent fewer days spent in jail."

Although other housing facilities often require tenants to be sober before moving in, Moore Place is grounded in the "housing first" concept. The idea is that individuals with mental health or addiction issues are more likely to be able to deal with those issues if they have a stable home base.

Read the Christian Science Monitor report here.

Almost half of homeless men had a previous brain injury

2014-06-05T21:51:00.000-04:00

A new study of homeless men found that 45% of the subjects surveyed had experienced traumatic brain injuries in the past.

“You could see how it would happen,” says Jane Topolovec-Vranic, a researcher in trauma and neurosurgery at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. “You have a concussion, and you can’t concentrate or focus. Their thinking abilities and personalities change. They can’t manage at work, and they may lose their job, and eventually lose their families. And then it’s a negative spiral” — a spiral that, for the men in the study, ends up in a homeless shelter.

There’s no clear data on how prevalent TBI is in the general population, which makes it difficult to say for sure whether the homeless men in the study were injured at an unusually high rate.

Read the Time article here.

A Kissimmee native's view of homelessness

2014-05-08T21:32:00.000-04:00

"Really it’s just a roll of the dice when you think about it, what separates you from the family living in the hotel room down the road," writes Samantha Stonebraker-Bailey. "When you can humble yourself to think about it, it’s very little. I am not too proud to say that there is nothing that separates me to the families who are homeless, what happened to these families was hardships, and could happen to my family too."

Read the rest of her comments in the Osceola Woman Newspaper here.

Los Angeles police arrest grandmother 59 times

2014-05-03T20:50:00.000-04:00

Ann Moody believes that she has a right to be wherever she chooses to be.

According to a federal appeals court, she is absolutely correct. The ruling, made in 2006, stated that due to the extreme lack of provided shelter, the city of Los Angeles could no longer arrest people for sleeping and sitting in public.

The city does not agree. In that same year, Los Angeles began a program called the Safer City Initiative. Based on the idea that when petty crime is punished, more serious crime is prevented, in its first year, the program racked up mostly pedestrian violations. About 12,000 citations were handed out. However, some say the initiative is a clever system for unfairly targeting homeless people.

With 59 arrests (Ann Moody now holds the distinction of being the most often arrested person in the city of Los Angeles) the homeless grandmother has been jailed for 15 months after 14 convictions. Approximately $250,000 of the taxpayers money has been spent on keeping Moody from sitting down (there have been some arrests for selling cigarettes.)

Read the AlterNet article here.

Americans are deeply divided over what causes poverty in the first place

2014-01-26T10:11:00.000-05:00

The belief that people are poor more through their own lack of effort than their circumstances is widely held by large segments of the population, including 51% of Republicans, and 46% of people in the highest income group (which is not that high). If you fall into this category, then it clearly doesn't make sense for society to try to solve a problem that it had little hand in creating.

The Pew Research Center has a new survey which confirms what you may already suspect: Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to believe the government should try hard to reduce poverty and inequality.

Part of this gap is explained by basic differences of belief in what the government can do (never mind what it should do). If you don't believe Washington is very effective at a lot of what it tries to accomplish, then you're not likely to think it can pull many impoverished families into the middle class, or lift up the entire bottom end of the income spectrum.

Read The Atlantic report here.

“What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?”

2014-01-20T10:22:00.000-05:00

Over the years, Martin Luther King’s more controversial edges have been smoothed over. He was a strident critic of capitalism and materialistic society. Referring to the now iconic Greensboro Lunch Counter sit-ins, he asked, “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?”

King also explicitly linked the problem of capitalism with the problem of racism. “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered,” he argued in a speech at Riverside Church in 1967. He was very aware that this kind of challenge was even more dangerous than his work on segregation and civil rights. “You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums,” he warned his staff in 1966. “You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.”

Read "4 Ways Martin Luther King Was More Radical Than You Thought" here.

Recently homeless older adults have different needs than those who have been homeless for a long time

2014-01-19T12:10:00.001-05:00

In addition to the lifelong elderly homeless population, there are now elderly people who are becoming homeless for the first time in their lives. Recently homeless older adults have different needs than those that have been homeless for a long time, according to the study "Living on the Margins: Older Homeless Adults in Toronto," published in Journal of Gerontological Social Work.

However, current homelessness services tend to treat them as if they had been homeless a long time. Recently homeless older adults lack experience finding support for their recent needs and have trouble navigating their way through complex social service programs. Once homeless, older adults have a difficult time improving their situations.

The researchers found that the biggest difference between the two groups was that recent older homeless people struggled with a lack of information about the homeless service system. Consequently, they used services that offered housing support, while the long-term homeless people tended to rely on temporary services like food banks and drop-ins.

Read a summary here.

As homelessness increases across Massachusetts, downtown Boston feels the surge

2014-01-12T22:01:00.002-05:00

Local, state, and federal officials have reported record numbers of homeless people in Massachusetts, especially families and youths. In late 2012, city officials counted 6,992 homeless men, women, and children in Boston, 5% more than the year before and 17% more than in 2001.

The increase has been highly visible in the city’s commercial heart.

Officials at the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District have reported a rise in calls about homeless people panhandling and sleeping in the area. As a result, this summer they began conducting monthly counts. In October, they found 40 people sleeping in the street around Macy’s.

With several shelters, soup kitchens, and a range of other services in the area, the homeless have long taken refuge in the alleys and alcoves from Boston Common to the Greenway. What’s changed are the expectations of new residents, business owners, and others who now frequent the neighborhood, said Rosemarie E. Sansone, president of the district.

“What’s happening is that property owners are seeing improvements in investments, and the area has become cleaner,” she said of an area that was once called the Combat Zone. “They’re seeing all these improvements and wondering why we haven’t made an impact with homelessness.”

Read the Boston Globe article here.

Florida can't drug test people simply because they’re poor

2014-01-03T11:57:00.000-05:00

Citing the 4th Amendment's protections against unreasonable government searches, a federal District Court handed down a blistering decision in the final hours of 2013 that knocked down a Florida law mandating that all applicants for the state's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program submit to suspicionless drug tests.

In the order, Judge Mary Scriven of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida rejects the state’s arguments and evidence defending the constitutionality of the suspicionless search program, stating that the court “finds there is no set of circumstances under which the warrantless, suspicionless drug testing at issue in this case could be constitutionally applied.”

Governor Rick Scott campaigned hard for this law, making the dubious claim that applicants for public assistance are more likely than the general population to be drug users and therefore that they should be subjected to mandatory and suspicionless searches of their urine. It turned out that so few applicants for public assistance actually tested positive for drugs – during the short period of time during which this law was operational – that Florida ended up shelling out thousands more dollars reimbursing those who tested negative than it saved on public assistance payments to those who tested positive.

Read the post at the ACLU Blog of Rights here.

"We are this close -- this close! -- to losing our democracy to the mercenary class"

2013-12-13T21:20:00.000-05:00

Award-winning journalist Bill Moyers says America's social contract has to cover everyone, not just the wealthy.

He quotes Justice William J. Brennan, who said:

"We do not yet have justice, equal and practical, for the poor, for the members of minority groups, for the criminally accused, for the displaced persons of the technological revolution, for alienated youth, for the urban masses .... Ugly inequities continue to mar the face of the nation. We are surely nearer the beginning than the end of the struggle."

Read the Brennan Center's full transcript of the speech here. A portion of it also appeared as an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times.

RIP Nelson Mandela

2013-12-05T08:41:00.000-05:00

“Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.”

Obama: Income gap a 'fundamental threat' to US

2013-12-04T15:13:00.000-05:00

President Barack Obama put a spotlight on rising income inequality in a major economic speech, arguing that the disparity is poses a "fundamental threat" to the American dream.

Marshaling both the recent papal exhortation by Pope Francis and a flurry of statistics reflecting a growing income gap between the wealthiest Americans and most others, Obama urged Washington to adopt policies to address the economic divide.

"The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to the American dream, our way of life, and what we stand for around the globe," Obama said at a speech in Washington, D.C. hosted by the progressive think tank Center for American Progress.

Obama called for a litany of proposals -- a higher minimum wage, stronger labor laws and a budget which promotes both education and social safety programs -- that he said would provide better economic stability for families in the aftermath of the recession that took hold as he took office in 2009.

Read the NBC News report here.

New Mexico’s largest homeless shelter challenges new HUD report on homelessness

2013-12-02T23:44:00.001-05:00

HUD has released its national estimate of homelessness, reporting that the homeless population in New Mexico fell by 18% since 2010, to 2,819 persons in 2013.

"We know from first-hand experience that the number of homeless in Albuquerque continues to grow, and the need for meals and other services are on the rise," said Jeremy Reynalds, Joy Junction CEO.

"When you consider the impact these numbers can have on our community's concern, awareness and investment in solving homelessness, it's vital that we discuss these kinds of reports."

Read the Crossmap article here.

Church group ordered to stop feeding homeless on Thanksgiving

2013-11-30T10:01:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all, but apparently not for the homeless living at Palm Beach County’s John Prince Park in Lake Worth.

A dozen church members from Acts 2 Worship Center in Loxahatchee showed up with packaged Thanksgiving meals. "We brought our kids out here so they could see what it’s really like for people that are struggling,” said church member Brian Oakes.

A Palm Beach County park ranger came up to the church group and ordered them to stop and leave. The ranger said he was ordered to warn the church members that they were violating county ordinances. When he was asked to cite the specific law that gave him the authority to kick out church members from a public park, he couldn’t do it. So he called dispatch to ask for help.

Dispatch said that feeding the homeless was not a permitted activity by a large group.

Read the 12 News story here.

No more home-cooked donations at Thanksgiving meal for Pasadena homeless

2013-11-27T08:54:00.000-05:00

Mark Rice lines up to get a free meal at Union Station Homeless Services' Thanksgiving dinner. Photo courtesy of Union Station Homeless Services.

The Pasadena charity Union Station Homeless Services will not be serving home-prepared dishes donated by community members at its annual Thanksgiving meal this year. The Pasadena Health Department informed the agency that it could no longer serve food items that were not prepared in approved locations.

Union Station has been offering holiday meals to the homeless in Pasadena's Central Park for 37 years. Part of the tradition has included home-cooked turkeys, sides and desserts that area residents have made and delivered. Union Station officials said that hundreds of people have donated dishes in recent years and that many have called or sent in emails complaining about the decision.

“They’re angry at this ruling. They’re disappointed in us, and they can’t understand why it’s happened. These are people who cook for their families, and they want to participate," said Rabbi Marvin Gross, CEO of Union Station Homeless Services. "I would say there definitely has been some backlash, some pushback.”
The Pasadena Health Department did not return calls requesting comment. Gross said he understood the concerns about safety, but said he had never heard of a single instance of anyone getting sick from the meals.

Despite the loss of donated, prepared food, Gross said the charity would still be able to meet the demand for the massive meal. He said Union Station expects to serve about 5000 meals on Thursday.

Read the Southern California Public Radio story here.

Elected official uses sledgehammer to destroy homeless people’s possessions

2013-11-19T21:47:00.002-05:00

A state representative in Hawaii is going around town with a sledgehammer smashing the belongings of homeless people to bits. He is "disgusted" by the homeless, doesn't want to see them, and is so proud of his actions that he happily allows himself to be filmed while swinging the hammer at the meager possessions of the most vulnerable people in our society.

This vigilante isn’t just some random citizen -- he's five-term State Rep. Tom Brower (D).

“I want to do something practical that will really clean up the streets,” he explained to Hawaii News Now as he showed off his property destruction skills while sporting an Armani Exchange hat.

Not content to just destroy homeless people’s items, Brower is also on a mission to wake those he finds sleeping and tell them to sleep somewhere else. “If someone is sleeping at night on the bus stop, I don’t do anything, but if they are sleeping during the day, I’ll walk up and say, ‘Get your ass moving,’” he said.

It’s no stretch to assume that if Brower were found roaming middle-class neighborhoods and smashing items in people’s homes, he would find himself both out of office and behind bars. But segments of society view homeless people as less important and undeserving of the dignity of having their possessions kept safe.

Read the Hawaii News Now story here.

One giant lie

2013-11-02T08:44:00.000-04:00

The Republican war on food stamps is based on one giant lie.

Ask any Republican on Capitol Hill about the proposed cut of $39 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, otherwise known as food stamps, and they'll say that the billions we spend each year on the SNAP program are a waste, and that the program is hurting our economy.

The Republican story couldn't be any further from the truth.

The 13.6% boost in food stamp aid in the 2009 Recovery Act helped to lift more than half a million Americans out of food insecurity, and millions more out of poverty. Food stamps lifted 4.7 million Americans out of poverty in 2011 alone, and when Americans are lifted out of poverty, the entire economy benefits.

As Christopher Cook over at Mother Jones points out, "extensive research shows food stamps are a highly effective investment delivering big returns for all Americans, not just the poor. SNAP not only provides an economic and nutritional lifeline for low-income Americans, it also creates a significant boon to the wider economy."

In other words, the billions of dollars the government spends each year on food stamps are being reinvested in the economy, and acting as a giant government stimulus.

According to the Department of Agriculture's Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, for every $5 spent on food stamps, up to $9 is generated in economic activity.

Read the Truthout story here.