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In the United States, the number of homeless people on a given night in January 2023 was more than 650,000 according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Homelessness has increased in recent years, in large part due to an increasingly severe housing shortage and rising home prices in the United States.
Out of 10,000 female individuals 13 are homeless. Although studies reflect that there are many differences among women suffering homelessness and there is no universal experience, the average homeless woman is 35 years old, has children, is a member of a minority community, and has experienced homelessness more than once in their lifetime.
Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affordable housing refers to mortgages and a number of forms that exist along a continuum – from emergency homeless shelters, to transitional housing, to non-market rental, to formal and informal rental, indigenous housing, and ending with affordable home ownership.
The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC), also called the "Poor People’s Army", is a human rights activism group in the United States
David K. Shipler is an American author and journalist. He won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction in 1987 for Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land. Among his other publications the book entitled, The Working Poor: Invisible in America, also has garnered many awards. Formerly, he was a foreign correspondent of The New York Times and served as one of their bureau chiefs. He has taught at many colleges and universities. Since 2010, he has published the electronic journal, The Shipler Report.
Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing is a basic human need, and it plays a critical role in shaping the quality of life for individuals, families, and communities.
Welfare rights means the rights of people to be aware of and receive their maximum entitlement to state welfare benefits, and to be treated reasonably well by the welfare system. It has been established in the United Kingdom since 1969 and has also been developed in other countries including Ireland, Australia and the United States. It became necessary because of the complexity of the UK social security system and had links at the time with a growing Claimants Union movement. As local authorities realized the advantages of having well-informed front-line staff such as housing officers and social workers, who often have to deal with benefit queries as part of their wider tasks, they turned to welfare rights staff to provide that expertise for both training and handling complex cases. In the 1980s, as local authorities took on the wider 'equalities' agenda, anti-poverty work was seen as a valid local activity in itself. Increasing benefit income helps individuals but also boosts the local economy.
In the United States, poverty has both social and political implications. In 2020, there were 37.2 million people in poverty. Some of the many causes include income inequality, inflation, unemployment, debt traps and poor education. The majority of adults living in poverty are employed and have at least a high school education. Although the US is a relatively wealthy country by international standards, it has a persistently high poverty rate compared to other developed countries due in part to a less generous welfare system.
Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. The general category includes disparate situations, such as living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation such as family or friends, living in boarding houses with no security of tenure, and people who leave their domiciles because of civil conflict and are refugees within their country.
The right to adequate clothing, or the right to clothing, is recognized as a human right in various international human rights instruments; this, together with the right to food and the right to housing, are parts of the right to an adequate standard of living as recognized under Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The right to clothing is similarly recognized under Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
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Cheri Lynn Honkala is an American anti-poverty advocate, co-founder of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU) and co-founder and National Coordinator of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, also called the Poor People’s Army. She has been a noted advocate for human rights in the United States and internationally. She is the mother of actor Mark Webber.
The National Union of the Homeless (NUH) is a national union of local activist organizations that fight for housing rights and economic justice in the United States. The organization was active between 1985 and 1993 and was reestablished in 2020. At its height the National Union of the Homeless had over 20 local unions and 15,000 members.
Edgar Stuart Cahn was an American law professor, a counsel and speech writer to Robert F. Kennedy, and the creator of TimeBanking. He co-founded the Antioch School of Law with his late wife, Jean Camper Cahn. Cahn has also held positions at the University of Miami School of Law, Florida International University, the London School of Economics, and a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. In later life, Cahn devoted most of his professional effort to TimeBanks USA, now TimeBanks.Org, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization he established in 1995.
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Arise for Social Justice is a grassroots organization focused on furthering the rights of low-income people formed in 1985 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Founding members centered the early activism of the group around their shared identity as women on welfare.
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Elizabeth Armen "Liz" Theoharis is an American theologian who is the co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival, and the Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary. She is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
David Zucchino is an American journalist and author.
References
- 1 2 Bricker-Jenkins, Mary; Young, Carrie; Honkala, Cheri (2007). "Using economic human rights in the movement to end poverty: the Kensington Welfare Rights union and the Poor People's Economic Human Rights campaign". In Reichert, Elisabeth (ed.). Challenges in human rights: a social work perspective. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 122–137. ISBN 9780231137201. OCLC 76864302.
- ↑ Salvatierra, Alexia; Heltzel, Peter Goodwin (2014). Faith-rooted organizing: mobilizing the church in service to the world. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press. p. 59. ISBN 9780830836611. OCLC 861966476.
- ↑ Bowers, John Waite; Ochs, Donovan J.; Jensen, Richard J.; Schulz, David P. (2010). The rhetoric of agitation and control (3rd ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press. p. 154. ISBN 9781577666141. OCLC 406133470.
- ↑ Lippmann, Laura (13 April 1997). "Welfare mythology: buried charlatan [review of Myth of the Welfare Queen by David Zucchino]". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved 10 December 2017.
- ↑ Jha, Sandya Rani (2017). "The power of keeping it simple: humans deserve housing". Transforming communities: how people like you are healing their neighborhoods. Saint Louis, Missouri: Chalice Press. pp. 48–60. ISBN 9780827237155. OCLC 988276950.
- ↑ Maryniak, Paul (24 September 1994). "Homeless families evicted: squatters booted from HUD houses". Philadelphia Daily News . Archived from the original on 22 December 2015. Retrieved 10 December 2017.
