FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FROM NATIONAL LAW CENTER ON HOMELESSNESS AND POVERTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MARIA FOSCARINIS!
Dear Friends—
As I write, we are gravely concerned about proposed deep cuts to federal funding for housing, health care, and education that will severely affect people who are already homeless, and threaten many more with homelessness.
United action to oppose these cuts is critically important. Last week, the Law Center along with 15 other national organizations wrote to President Trump expressing our concern and asking him to convene a White House summit to address the crisis of homelessness. The letter lays out actions we would like the President to take and to ask Congress to support to address it. Read the letter here.
Please take a stand in your community and with your Congressional representatives! We must not only oppose cuts, but also fight proactively for the policies and funds we know we need to end and prevent homelessness.
The Housing Not Handcuffs Campaign includes policy proposals at the federal, state and local levels to do just that. If you haven’t already, please endorse the campaign, and get the word out to your networks to endorse it too.
Our advocacy is now more important than ever—and the support of our allies, friends, and concerned people across the country is essential to carrying it out. Please get involved and join us by supporting our work in whatever way you can!
Thank you so much for your commitment.
USICH Issues Guidance On Legal Assistance In Ending Homelessness
Following consultation with the Law Center and other groups, the US Interagency Council on Homelessness issued guidance (https://www.usich.gov/…/engaging-legal-services-in-communit…) in February on engaging legal services as part of community efforts to end homelessness.
The guidance takes a broad approach to the way legal services can help end homelessness, looking not only at how lawyers can help individuals, but also how they can address systemic barriers, and how service providers can integrate legal services to provide comprehensive care for the people they serve.
The guidance also notes there are many ways lawyers can help, from assisting with protective orders for domestic violence victims to helping homeless students stay in school, getting identification documents to stopping the criminalization of homelessness (citing the Law Center’s 2014 No Safe Place report --
http://tracking.etapestry.com/…/11974440…/... -- as a resource).
The Law Center welcomes this guidance and encourages service providers to review it to see how lawyers may be able to assist them in ways they may not have considered before. Please contact us to see if we can work with our national network of pro bono and legal services attorneys to ensure you are doing all you can to end homelessness in your community.
Please Endorse Our Campaign
In order to end the crisis of homelessness, the criminalization of homelessness must end immediately. All persons experiencing homelessness should instead have access to affordable housing, education, health care, employment, income, and other opportunities and services that allow all to live with dignity. These are the only solutions to the crisis of homelessness from a moral, legal, fiscal, and policy perspective. The Law Center and over 100 of our partners have launched the Housing Not Handcuffs Campaign (http://housingnothandcuffs.org/) to call for the end to the criminalization of homelessness and a major national shift toward effective housing policies. Please join or endorse our campaign now (http://housingnothandcuffs.org/endorse/)!
The Law Center is seeking a smart, energetic, and committed director to assume the leadership of its development activities! The Director of Development will join the management team of this innovative organization and work with a dedicated and inspiring team of professionals. To learn more, please click THE LINK BELOW:
Please read and learn more about these issue at:
https://bos.etapestry.com/prod/viewEmailAs...
Posted By: agnes levine
Tuesday, March 21st 2017 at 1:17PM
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