Outline:

S: This is Sprout

C: and this is Charyan, and we are the hosts of Molotov Now!, on The Channel Zero Podcast Network, thank you for joining us on this episode of the podcast.

S: if you like what we do here and want to support it, you can do that by going to linktr.ee/al1312 and clicking donate.

C: This episode will see us exploring the new and shifting landscape of those involved in organizing in the unhoused community in their town. Ever since the so called supreme court handed down the Grants Pass decision communities have been scrambling to understand what cities are able to do and how to respond to the influx of anti homeless ordinances being passed in its wake.

S: I sat down with Eric Tars of the National Homelessness Law Center to discuss what this decision means for organizers and what next steps can look like. Eric had many insights and thoughts about the things that on the ground organizers can be doing right now to help support the coming legal challenges and think about what non-legal actions we can be taking too. I also spoke with Paul Boden, Director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project about their organization’s involvement in organizing the unhoused and pushing for legal protections for people living on the streets in the wake of this ruling from the Supreme Court.

C: We also have the audio version of our newsletter, The Communique, and our radical news roundup after this short message from our sponsor.

Sponsor:

The Communique:

To read in full click image:

Monthly Radical News Roundup:

Music:

Segment one:

Welcome back to Molotov Now!

Sprout: We are joined today by Eric Tars, Senior Policy and Legal Director for the National Homelessness Law Center, the only national organization dedicated solely to using the power of the law to end and prevent homelessness through training, advocacy, impact litigation, and public education. He’s here today to talk with us about the new and shifting legal landscape that unhoused people and their communities are facing after the grant’s past decision from the Supreme Court.

If you could please introduce yourself, give us your pronouns, a brief visual description, and tell us a little bit about the work that brings you onto the podcast today.

Eric: My name is Eric Tarrs, Senior Policy Director at the National Homelessness Law Center. I use he, his pronouns and I am a 40 something white male with glasses, no hair, joining from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where I live.

I work from home, and I’m here on the podcast today because we have seen an attack on people experiencing homelessness across the country, one that we at the National Homelessness Law Center have been working Attempting to fight in the courts and in city halls and other Congress and other places across the country, but this past summer, Supreme Court in a 6 3 decision said that despite longstanding precedent, it was okay to ticket and arrest people experiencing homelessness for merely trying to survive outdoors to sleep, keep themselves safe from the elements, even if there’s nowhere else to go where they could possibly go. Even if the community offers no alternative shelter, people can still be arrested and ticketed for those basic life sustaining acts that we all do every day in order to survive. And we often take for granted, but when people experiencing homelessness, do them outdoors in public places, they can now be Arrested, ticketed, fined, and all of those things only put more barriers in the way of people getting out of homelessness.

They do nothing to solve the problem. The only thing that actually solves homelessness is housing. And yeah, we are trying to regroup. Back to work in the courts and see if there are other legal protections that we can put in place as well as work on at the policy level to either stop these laws from getting passed or to put in place protections to restore the prior balance that we had when the Eighth Amendment could protect against these cruel and unusual punishments.

Sprout: I want to thank you for that work that you do. So you guys were actually involved in the actual litigation for Grants Pass. What was your involvement there?

Eric: Sure, so we had been working with the two legal organizations, the Oregon Justice Resource Center and the Oregon Law Center, that helped to bring the case initially.

We coordinate a national collective of legal advocates that are working to fight the criminalization of homelessness, where we’re sharing strategies and learning from each other, helping to do these things more strategically and then. As the case moved up to the appellate level, we submitted an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit case, which affirmed that the lower court, which found correctly that this was a violation of Eighth Amendment rights.

And then as the case moved to the Supreme Court at the national level, the Homelessness Law Center Help you serve as a hub for all of the advocacy around the case. Coordinating the amicus briefs, the friend of the court briefs that were submitted by more than 40 organizations and signed on to by more than a thousand individuals that explained all of the reasons why this kind of approach criminalizing homelessness is It’s unconstitutional.

It’s bad health care policy, bad public safety policy, bad economic policy, all of those things. We helped to bring together the organizations and the individuals working on those things. We also helped to coordinate and partnership with the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

A rally outside of the court on the day of the oral arguments that brought more than 500 people from across the country to rally outside the court for housing, not handcuffs. And even though we ultimately didn’t get the decision we wanted in the courts, we really feel like we did. We use the moment of the case to mobilize our movement across the country and, that’s something that the courts can’t take away from us.

We have built the relationships with different groups and the awareness of this issue that while we’ve experienced this setback, sets us up to actually win what we need in the longer run, which is that everybody has access to the housing they need.

Sprout: Yeah, this definitely woken up a lot of people to the issues that the unhoused are facing when they maybe weren’t aware previous.

What does this new decision mean for unhoused people and what does it mean for local municipalities that want to enact anti homeless ordinances? Also, what are the limits?

Eric: Yeah so first, this is a disaster for people experiencing homelessness. They are going to experience immediate harm as communities pass new laws and enforce old ones that allow people to be ticketed or arrested.

Even if there’s no alternative place where they can actually survive. We’ve actually seen that just in the three months since the decision, more than a hundred communities have introduced new proposals or new laws. That would make it. Partial people experiencing homelessness, removing the requirements for alternative shelter where those requirements existed, toughening the bans, increasing penalties.

And those have already passed in close to 70 communities across the country. Many more are still pending. And so people are already suffering exactly as we said they would. And again, this is Harms that are being visited are felt most harshly by the individuals who are already homeless, but it really harms the entire community because it takes, it makes homelessness last longer, and it takes resources away from the actual solutions that could be getting people off the streets and then puts them into these harmful practices.

That are just going to cycle people through the courts and the jails and not do anything to actually solve the problem. So the communities are going to continue to suffer the consequences of people needing to live outdoors in places where they shouldn’t be living. And, nobody wins in this situation.

Moreover, Although these laws criminalizing homelessness impact everybody of all stripes, we know that this is going to have hugely disparate racial impacts because of the disparate impact of homelessness and of criminal justice policies on black and brown communities, on LGBTQ individuals, on people with disabilities.

All of this is going to funnel many who simply can’t afford the rent into the criminal legal system with all the collateral consequences of getting into that criminal legal system, from losing your right to vote in some places, having the, a criminal record that’s going to make it harder to get or maintain employment, to get benefits, to get housing, all of those things are going to come along with this and it’s going to hurt already marginalized communities.

The other thing is that over the past five years or so, we’ve seen the growth of a new approach on criminalizing. Historically, criminalization has mostly taken place at the municipal level, at the very local level, as one individual gets unhappy with a homeless encampment on their corner, and they call their city counselor or their mayor, and they say, I want that encampment gone.

That’s criminalization. And then they pass a law at the local level saying it’s illegal for people to be there and sweep them away. But over the past five years, we’ve seen a new trend at the state level, past state level camping bans and creation of Essentially homeless concentration camps where they’re in a bit of template legislation from a right wing organization called the Cicero Institute as being promoted across the country to push for these sanctioned encampment type approaches that are going to force people under threat of arrest.

Out of communities into these far flung camps on the peripheries of the cities, and just basically get people out of sight out of mind and take the resources that we could be putting into actually housing people into these short term measures that aren’t actually going to make anything better. We also know that if Trump wins the presidency, he has promised to put in place a national camping ban and push for these sorts of relocation camps, as he calls them. And so we are really concerned that with the Supreme Court’s decision, In the Grants Pass case, this could be similar to the Supreme Court’s decision in Korematsu versus the United States back during World War II, which allowed for the removal of tens of thousands of Japanese American citizens to the United States relocation camps or as they are now calling them, American concentration camps, in the interior of the country. Yeah, there’s a lot of fear of what could go wrong now that these protections have been removed. That said, the court did say that homeless people aren’t without protection from the Constitution and that other due process or other civil rights do still apply and could still be used.

We are exploring what legal angles we may still have accessible to us. Some things we do know, they didn’t comment on the ability of the courts to remove people’s property. And or the ability of the police to remove people’s property. Those protections are still in place.

We may be able to find other ways of protecting people from enforcement of these laws when there isn’t alternative legislation. Safe places for them to be, but that’s going to take a while to play out in the courts, and we’re going to likely see a lot of harm before any of those protections are able to really be defined.

Sprout: Yeah, and we’re seeing all of this here in Aberdeen. It was maybe a few days. After the grants passed decision came down that our heavily right wing city council called a special meeting so that they could discuss how they’re going to enforce the ordinances that they already had on the books that were just sitting there in the wings waiting to be enforceable.

And we, as a community, pushed back so hard that we had to get them to give a 30 day extension to that, because they wanted to enact it immediately. I also know that some people find it difficult to stick up for their rights when they’re homeless. These legal protections that you’re talking about, Are sometimes hard for people to know that they have or if they know that they have them to, say to a cop, you can’t take my property or this or that.

My question is going forward, what sort of advocacy or litigation can be expected in response to this new legal landscape where a lot of those protections have evaporated and the ones that are left people don’t really know how to assert those.

Eric: Yeah and many of these rights do differ from state to state or even community to community.

So it’s hard to come up with universal know your rights materials, but we are working on that, those sorts of things that can be distributed directly to people experiencing homelessness so that they can understand and assert their rights. But often, even when you are doing that a Law enforcement may ignore them in practice, and we definitely recognize that, as I said, as these things are worked out, there are going to be harms that people experience, even when they shouldn’t be, even where there are rights that they should have.

But, and, so I think the real, The key here is organizing, is building power together as a community, as directly impacted individuals, together working with other legal and non legal advocates in the community where they’re concerned. aren’t actual rights on the books, we can pass them. We can create them.

The National Home Assist Law Center has a template bill of our own that we are working to get enacted at state level in a number of states that would reinstate the protections that were lost through the Johnson versus grants pass case and give clarity to communities about what is allowed and what isn’t allowed and make sure that, we don’t end up with a race to the bottom as we’re seeing right now where one community will pass an anti camping law and then the neighboring community will say we don’t want all, community, the other communities, people experiencing homelessness to think it’s easier to be in our city than theirs so we’re going to pass something. Even more harsh, and even though there’s not a lot of evidence that people actually move from place to place because of these laws, they just suffer under them. Because for the most part, people experiencing homelessness are homeless where they were previously homeless.

Previously housed because that’s where they have their connections to jobs. Many are still working to family or friends that they might be able to stay with to other services. It’s not easy as a person experiencing homelessness to just pick up a move, but legislators city council members seem to think that’s the way things go.

And so they are always trying to make things more harsh. And if we can put in. Place protections at the state level that will help to address some of those things.

Sprout: We’ve seen exactly that happen here in our county when we enacted here in Aberdeen, when we started enforcing those laws and we swept our main encampment.

We saw a lot of people just leave to neighboring counties. We saw a lot of people just find a friend’s yard or couch they could crash on for a little bit. And then there’s some people who have nowhere to go and they’re just being arrested every day or every other day as they sit down on this, on the wrong part of the sidewalk or whatever.

But regardless of that, our city council and our city administrator is out there talking to the newspapers about how they’ve solved homelessness. Clearly there’s way less homeless people in town, and that is true, and they see that as a solution. They think that, to them, solving homelessness in Aberdeen is simply shoving the problem to other locations and hoping that they can deal with it. It’s just messy.

Eric: Yeah. And the thing is that they haven’t solved the problem because they haven’t solved the underlying causes of homelessness. In Aberdeen people are going to continue to become homeless because there’s still an affordable housing crisis, because there are still unmet needs for medical care and other services.

Those are the reasons why people are becoming homeless, and unless those things are addressed, you might get some temporary relief in some individual places, but you haven’t actually solved the problem.

Sprout: Exactly. Yeah, it’s hard because a lot of people aren’t really that plugged into what’s going on.

And so they only get those headlines and it sounds and it looks a lot better, perhaps because there’s no big encampment, there’s less visible homeless people because a lot of them are in a jail cell now, or have just left because we were the first county to start doing that. And so people think Like you said, figured, oh, it’s going to be easier over in the next county or the next city or whatever.

I’m going to just get out of here and yet no one is willing to discuss or address the actual issue, which is a lack of housing units. We just don’t have enough housing in this county to house. Everyone who lives here, and that’s the issue.

Eric: Exactly, and it costs, 60, 000 plus a year to quote unquote, house somebody in jail.

Whereas it costs, 13, 000 a year to provide somebody with housing, even with supportive service needs for a year. It has the county or the city seen some visible reductions on the streets? Sure. Are they paying? Are people paying? Are the taxpayers paying way more for it than if they had actually addressed the underlying housing needs?

Yes, they are. And so it’s not going to be sustainable and, as people come out of the jail system, now with criminal records, with fines and fees that are just a barrier to them saving up their first month’s rent and security deposits how is that solving the problem? It’s not. It’s only making it worse.

In addition to the trying to oppose criminalization of homelessness, which is just a harm reducing measure we are also, the ultimate solution to criminalizing homelessness is to make sure that everybody is in adequate housing, because when everybody has housing nobody’s camping on the streets in the first place.

Nobody actually wants to be there but they’re there because they don’t have any other place to be. And the ultimate solution here is to create a world where we have housing justice, where everybody has access to housing. And so that’s the goal. In addition to just simply trying to stop, we’re not just about saying, don’t do this we’re also about saying what we have as a vision for a better world.

Sprout: Am I right in hearing that? Your guys response going forward is to try and get those protections enacted in law as opposed to it being just a sort of default from a decision of the lower court the, what was it, the 11th?

Eric: 9th Circuit.

Sprout: 9th Circuit. So instead of it being just a default from their decision, it would actually be enacted at a state level law?

Eric: Yeah, we’re looking at both state and federal law, and at local level laws, any municipality could also pass the template legislation as well. So courts are one avenue, and The legislatures are another avenue and we are trying to use both.

Sprout: Do you have that template public? If someone wanted to find that and maybe suggest that at a city council meeting or something, would they be able to do that?

Eric: Yeah, sure. I’m happy to share the link with you after, but it’s on our housing. handcuffs. org website. Folks, look for the Gloria Johnson Anti Criminalization Act I think you should be able to find it with Google, right?

Sprout: All right. Yeah, we’ll put that in the show notes, too. All right, so let’s talk community organizing because that’s the work that we’re involved here in our community.

Are there any potential next steps that you can think of the community organizers? Who are doing this type of work in these communities should be thinking about or preparing for a legal battle against their city.

Eric: Yeah, so first and foremost is to do that community organizing, to meet with the people who are directly impacted by these policies, people who are living on the street, people who might live there in the future.

This is definitely You know, not just about the people who are currently experiencing homelessness, but anybody who’s housing insecure, who’s paying more than they can afford in rents, because according to the Supreme Court now, the second you walk out your door, and don’t have a place to go back to, and wrap a blanket around yourself to protect yourself from the cold, you might be committing a crime that you could be So we need to build solidarity, not just amongst people who are currently experiencing homelessness, but across all communities.

Also, highlighting the racially disparate impacts, the gender and disability disparate impacts, and say this is really a cause for all of us. But in particular with people who are living on the streets, it’s really important to be able to get their voices. into the policy conversation, ideally directly having them go to city councils or be able to be part of litigation and be able to testify to their experiences.

But where that’s not possible, community organizers can do surveys. If folks go to wraphome. org, that’s W R A P home. org, that the Western Regional Advocacy Project has a number of surveys that they have prepared to help showcase what the experience of people on the streets is to collect the data and say, this is how these laws are being implemented.

In many communities, you’ll see when these laws are being passed that the city councilors will say we don’t really want to criminalize people. We’re not trying to be harsh to people. But we just need this tool. But guess what? If you pass a law. that says you can criminalize somebody for just trying to sleep or shelter themselves.

That’s exactly what you’re doing. You are making it and that is the experience that people are going to have. And so being able to bring those voices both individually and collectively into the conversation through surveys being able to have them explain, no, in fact even though you claim there are services in the community, you claim there’s shelters, these are all the reasons that those things aren’t actually accessible to people like us.

So that’s useful for policy advocacy, but it also can be used to create a record for litigation. And so that’s, it’s good to build that record and simply the act of doing these interviews, surveys with people can help bring them, help bring the directly impacted folks into the organizing that you’re doing help to educate them.

You can use it as an opportunity to share what people’s rights are and how they can be part of change. And ultimately building power is what this is all about. Even when we win in litigation, that often what we would see is, we say you can’t have this law saying you can’t sleep anywhere on the streets, so they pass an anti camping ordinance.

You can’t have that, then you can’t be in the park after dark. And If we actually want to change the way communities approach homelessness and not just what specific laws that we have to challenge again and again in the courts, we really need to build that, that people power. And so that’s where our efforts should be focused.

Sprout: On top of the normal organizing work. We can be little data collectors for lawyers.

Eric: Exactly. Yeah, and we can’t do it without that. It really needs to be litigators working hand in hand with community organizers and with the people who are experiencing the harms themselves. Yeah.

Sprout: And we have noticed a severe lack of data around this stuff.

Where we’re at, that it’s just, it makes it easier for them to say stuff that’s not true. Because, then we don’t have the data to say, hey, you’re wrong. We can say you’re, you’re wrong, but having that data to back it up would be really great.

Eric: We’ve seen this work in practice.

I know out in Walla, Washington, there is a homeless community living in a park in kind of the center of town. And And there was a push to criminalize them, to force them out of the park, but when the downtown business association did a survey of who was actually living there, they found that in fact, more than 90 percent of the people who are living there had been Residents of the community beforehand and more, I think more than three quarters of them had been born in Walla or in the county where it is.

And that kind of totally changed people’s perceptions from, these are others who we need to push out of the community to these are our own citizens who we have failed as a community. And so we actually need to do better by them. Criminalization isn’t the right approach. We need to Create more housing, more shelter, port a potties and other temporary measures in place while we work on those longer term things.

And yeah, having that data, being able to bring it forward can actually really impact the policy conversation.

Sprout: Yeah, and like you said, those stories, those personal stories from the streets are really powerful too. Alright, so my next question is along the same line, but focusing more on what the actual people living on the streets can do if they feel like their constitutional rights are being violated.

Eric: Yeah like I said before, we recognize that it isn’t easy in our system, that it’s often much easier to simply avoid contact with the police to, try to comply with orders that people are given if they are arrested to simply plead guilty in order to plead guilty. Get out of jail as quickly as possible.

But the best thing that folks could do is not to simply plead guilty to stand up for their rights to Contest each ticket each arrest every time to really show communities the consequences of passing these laws and to assert their rights that supreme court in their Discussion of the case talks a lot about this necessity defense, the idea that even if you commit an act, if you had to do it, because there weren’t any other options, that can be a defense, and people shouldn’t be giving up on that defense.

We should be actually contesting that each and every time and forcing the state to, showing the community kind of the consequences of, Taking this approach and encouraging that will put pressure on them to come up with better, more constructive solutions and it’ll build allies within the court system itself within law enforcement, police officers, they have to show up at each and every one of these trials are going to be simply overwhelmed, that’s time that they aren’t actually going to be out on the streets solving them.

real crimes. And so you’ll get members of the public saying, where are police officers? They’re all in court all day because they are arresting homeless people, not doing anything that’s really harming the community. So yeah, this It’s a great way of building power and building new allies within the system to help push us in the way of, in the direction of more constructive policy.

And in addition to doing that on the criminal side, you can also contact your local legal aid organization. If you want to bring a systemic case to challenge the unconstitutionality of these laws, we need folks like Gloria Johnson, who was the name plaintiff in Johnson vs. Grants Pass, to stand up. It’s very hard to find people who are experiencing homelessness who are willing to do that.

To do that. So yeah, we need people standing up for their rights and who are willing to take that on for not just themselves, but for the entire community of people experiencing homelessness. And that’s, that’s the only way that we can bring our cases as lawyers is if we have those plaintiffs who are willing to do that.

Sprout: And I think I would just add for the community organizers. We need to be thinking about jail support and court support and how we can be there in that difficulty that you’re talking about in standing up for your rights, how we can make it even a little bit easier for them to think about doing that because they’ll know that they have people on their side and they have people who will show up to court and just sit there for them.

That kind of stuff could make a big difference in. Who is willing to really stand up and do that kind of stuff.

Eric: Yeah, and then, obviously intervening at the point that somebody’s in court is important, but it’s even better if you’ve built that relationship ahead of time, through work out in the community.

So it’s a both and it’s, there should be people in the courts every day, and there should be people going out into the community, building those relationships with Folks who are currently living on the street who might be threatened in the future, and then, potentially you can have both of those people in court on the day that, that given individuals is charged.

Yeah, lots of different ways that organizers can help to support and make it actually possible to exercise these rights, recognizing that it, that is a real big burden to place onto a person who’s already You know, at the edge of their mental and physical resources that to try to challenge something in court

Sprout: As far as legal advocacy is an effective tactic goes, what are your thoughts around the current makeup of the Supreme Court in terms of it feels like you said the lower court got it right.

And the Supreme Court seems to be this sort of political activist court that is making decisions based on their political right wing agenda, as opposed to looking at precedent and looking at the Constitution and interpreting those things. In a nonpolitical neutral way that you would expect a court to do.

Does that make it more difficult for you guys as legal advocates?

Eric: Yeah, it sure does. It means that in every one of these cases we know there’s a threat that even if we bring a case that we’re confident on the laws and the policies underlying our argument and that we might win. At a local district court level, that there’s always the potential that a community could appeal it, and appeal it again up to the Supreme Court, as was done with the Grants Pass case, that the decision there, there was actually a law firm based out of Los Angeles, Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher That has been cultivating these cases to challenge the Martin versus Boise doctrine that had existed since 2018 in the Ninth Circuit.

They were reaching out to communities where local attorneys had challenged these laws and said, we’ll take this case on for you. We want to overturn it. And so we’ll Keep on appealing it until we get the decision that we want. So yeah, that concern is always in the back of our heads or even in the front of our heads as we’re deciding which cases we want to bring, but at the same time, if you don’t challenge any of these laws. If you don’t bring these cases, then that just means people’s rights are already being violated. And the other side has already effectively won because we’re not challenging those violations. So it does put us in a bind. It does mean that we are looking more now to state court challenges as opposed to federal court challenges.

Those are less easily appealed to the Supreme Court when a state is interpreting its own state constitution. So there are ways that we can address that. But in some cases it does make sense to challenge things through the federal courts. And yeah, it’s a risk we need to assess and decide in each case whether or not it’s a risk we want to take.

Sprout: All right, I’d like to move into a few questions that we got submitted to us from our listeners once I found out that I would have the Senior Policy Director on the podcast. I wanted to see if there were any particular questions that our listener community would have for you. First one being, Does the Supreme Court’s ruling make simply being unhoused a crime?

In every city where there are unhoused community members, it’s because there’s inadequate or no low barrier shelters, and due to unaffordable housing costs, where people are paying 50 percent or more of their income to rent. Isn’t the ruling just making it illegal to be poor?

Eric: Yes and no. The ruling on its own doesn’t do this.

Justice Gorsuch, the author of the decision, makes clear in the decision that just because communities can pass these laws, it doesn’t mean that they have to, and as we know, they shouldn’t, though he doesn’t say that. And he said, he does say that there may be other legal protections that could prohibit various forms of criminalization.

I have seen in news stories, as more communities have passed this, people are claiming that the Supreme Court is requiring them. to pass these laws and that they are passing new, harsher ordinances in order to be compliant with the Supreme Court. And that is absolutely not true. The Supreme Court does not require any community, any state to pass a law that criminalizes homelessness.

It just said that they aren’t barred by the Eighth Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment for doing so. So there may be other Constitutional provisions that will ultimately be found to prohibit them from doing so. And there’s lots of policy reasons why they shouldn’t do and they are free to, in fact, put in place protections against these sorts of things.

So it’s not, no community has to do that. But, that said, as I noted earlier, hundreds of communities are ready. I have taken this permission from the Supreme Court to pass these laws and, as I said what this means in essence is that, as the listener notes, it is making it a crime not to be poor per se, but if you are poor and you are evicted, you lose your housing.

The way these laws are written, it says that using any form of bedding in a public space when you don’t have somewhere else to go. Is a crime. Like I said, the second you walk out your door after being evicted, you don’t have another place to be, you wrap a blanket around yourself, that could be a crime and you could be carted off to jail or to one of these concentration camps for people experiencing homelessness.

So yeah, it’s, it is a very dire threat.

Sprout: And what is the plan to fight back in a legal but also street level sense? Are you familiar with the on the ground coalitions like poor people’s radio? We the unhoused and so on like they have in Los Angeles, for example, some sort of action where housed and unhoused community members could show up to support.

Eric: Yeah, I’m definitely familiar with those groups. And yes, directly impacted people need to be leading the organizing policy and legal responses. And we at the National Homelessness Law Center. are here to support those efforts with our particular areas of legal and policy expertise. But we are looking to those organizations that are by, for, and of the people experiencing homelessness to show us where the need is and where we need to push.

Yes, to all of that.

Sprout: Alright, and how do you and your organization support LGBTQ plus youth who are facing homelessness?

Eric: The Law Center has long been working at the intersection of these different forms of criminalization, where people are experiencing homelessness because, often, of discrimination against their peers sexual or gender orientation. And for example, we’ve been partnering for about the past five years with True Colors United to publish our state index on youth homelessness, which ranks states based on their policies towards homeless youth, including A wide range of LGBTQ plus policy. We just issued a new manual on mental health access in every state for homeless youth.

And we’ve recently hired an attorney focused on homeless youth rights in shelter. So even within shelters, we can see discrimination based on sexual and gender orientation. And so we are trying to meet the needs that we’re seeing from the community. It’s definitely an important area that we feel like we need to be active in.

And yeah, we’re doing what we can, and there’s always more to do. And so if people have specific things that they see going on in the community, we encourage them to reach out to us through our website, homelesslaw. org. You can email us at info at homelesslaw. org, and we’ll get the email referred to the right attorney to work on it.

Sprout: Great. And another listener asked, How do we protect people during sweeps?

Eric: It’s not easy. They’re the best thing that we can do is make sure that they aren’t swept in the first place in some communities. For example, they are putting in requirements, policies, and procedures to make sure that people have, if an area is going to be cleared, that there’s adequate notice ahead of time to connect people to services to make sure that they can move into them.

And, I think it’s important to say that like we at the national home assist law center. don’t want to see people living in encampments. But we know that the way that we end encampments is not by pushing them out of sight, out of mind. It’s by ending the underlying need for encampments by ensuring that everybody’s moved into housing.

And that’s a positive thing. We want to make sure that people are using the best practices to make that happen. Send outreach workers into encampments before a sweep is even contemplated to build relationships with people to understand what the barriers are that they have to getting into housing and then to match them with housing that meets their needs, and then you can close that encampment without them ever needing to do a harsh, law enforcement backed sweep. You’re just meeting people’s needs at that point. So that’s the best approach. But where a law enforcement backed sweep is occurring, having members of the community out there Protesting to try and stop it or just serving as observers to make sure that people’s property isn’t being taken or destroyed, that their other rights aren’t being violated is really important. Taking. Pictures of the process, taking pictures of people’s belongings before and then after, just, if things are being seized or disposed of, that’s really important. We often have seen, people’s medical devices, medicines, things like urns of people’s dead relatives that they’re carrying with them, other mementos, flags and medals from people’s veteran parents or their own medals disposed of.

And those details are the kinds of things that legal cases are won and lost on. It’s really important to have those details that can really move judges and juries. Any sort of documentation that people can do when the sweep is actually occurring to try to prevent those harms, and then if there are harms going on, to document them.

That’s really important.

Sprout: Another listener submitted this question. What exactly does the law mean for unsheltered folks in specific vehicle dwellers? They ask, am I sleeping on public property if I’m in my vehicle, which is my property?

Eric: Clever. Clearly that person missed. Their opportunity to go to law school. That’s a great Logic puzzle to pose to somebody No, I mean as I said before the law is going to be community specific the Grant’s past ruling doesn’t say anything specifically about what the law is, it just says what the law is allowed to be constitutionally.

But, as I’ve said, a number of communities building on the grants past precedent have passed those laws that make it legal to camp on public property, including in vehicles, or have passed other anti vehicle habitation ordinances that specifically target vehicle dwellers. And so yes, unfortunately, if your vehicle is parked in on public property, then you are on public property.

You could be charged with a violation of One of those ordinances, and yeah, this is one of the most rapidly growing forms of criminalization of homelessness grown by more than 200 percent over the past decade or so is our laws specifically targeting vehicle residents because the number of people living in their vehicles, because there isn’t enough funding.

Affordable housing has grown so rapidly. So yeah, you’re definitely at risk. There is a national vehicle residency collective that is specifically by, for, and of people who are residing in their vehicles or who have in the past. And I think it’s vehicle residency. org. You can find resources and connections to other people who are living their vehicles and who are advocating for policies that would benefit them.

So that’s a good resource for people.

Sprout: Oh, that’s great. I hadn’t even heard of that. All right. Another listener submitted this question. What exactly is the legal definition of public property that this particular precedent is set upon? Does owned by the state but not open to the public count? Does reclaimed by the state from a private party and left vacant count?

What are we looking at here?

Eric: We could be looking at any and all of the above. It is, again, up to a lot of state and local law. Many of the ordinances only impact one piece of, municipal land, not state land, not federal land, but it’s often difficult to tell exactly where those boundaries are. Most of us don’t know, that the land under a federal interstate is, It’s federal land versus, but that local cops may be given permission to enforce local ordinances there.

So it’s a big mess to try to sort it out and it’s very difficult for any one individual to know exactly what land they might be staying on and whether or not it’s subject to any restrictions. So yeah, there’s no, unfortunately there’s no simple answer I can give there.

Sprout: Another job for community organizers, perhaps, is just figuring out your own community’s lay of the land, and not only the actual land that you’re living upon, who owns it, but the legal landscape as well in your community as to what rights are available, and printing those off and distributing those to as many people as you can.

Eric: Exactly. Yep.

Sprout: Because it’s going to be different everywhere. And that makes it rough, because there’s no real wide sweeping answers that we can give.

Eric: Yeah, exactly.

Sprout: Alright, Eric I want to thank you very much for all the hard work that you’ve been putting into this stuff, and we’ll continue to do and I want to thank you for taking time out of that work to talk to us about this stuff. I really appreciate it.

Eric: And I appreciate you, Ash, and the work that you’re doing to get the work out. This is where the action is happening. It’s People like you stepping up saying they care about their community and all of the people in their community and trying to make a difference.

So yeah, thank you for the opportunity to talk with you and your listeners.

It is time for a musical break so here is Robber’s Roost with Aint Nobody and Swallow Your Fears, Catch them in Aberdeen Nov 29th. Hit it!

Music:

Segment Two:

Next we speak to the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) about their organization, its unique approach to outreach and organizing, and what tools organizers can be using to make their work more accountable to those they are organizing with.

Conclusion:

As we’ve explored today, the fight against homelessness transcends mere legal battles; it is a critical intersection of social justice, community empowerment, and systemic change. Our discussion with the National Homelessness Law Center has illuminated the complex dynamics of homelessness in our society and the ways in which legal frameworks can be manipulated to oppress rather than protect the most vulnerable among us.

One of the key takeaways from our conversation is the urgent need to recognize that homelessness does not exist in a vacuum. It is a symptom of broader societal issues, such as the lack of affordable housing, stagnant wages, and systemic discrimination. For the poor working class, the threat of homelessness looms large, acting as a constant reminder of the precariousness of their situation. Even those who are employed can find themselves just one paycheck away from losing their homes, and this instability creates a ripple effect that can destabilize entire communities.

Moreover, the criminalization of homelessness exacerbates the challenges faced by the working class. When municipalities enact laws that target unhoused individuals, they divert resources away from addressing the root causes of homelessness and instead focus on punishment and policing. This not only harms those living on the streets but also contributes to an environment of fear and distrust within working-class neighborhoods, as community members may become complicit in upholding these oppressive systems.

As anarchists, we envision a world where mutual aid, solidarity, and community self-determination replace punitive measures. We believe that the solutions to homelessness should be rooted in the needs and voices of those directly impacted. It is imperative that we support grassroots movements and organizations that prioritize dignity and autonomy over incarceration and displacement.

The path forward requires a collective commitment to dismantling the structures that perpetuate inequality and to advocating for policies that genuinely support housing as a human right. By addressing the systemic issues that lead to homelessness, we not only uplift the unhoused but also create a stronger, more resilient working class that can stand together against exploitation and marginalization.

Here are some concrete actions you can take based on our interviews today:

• Educate Yourself and Others: Familiarize yourself with the legal rights of unhoused individuals in your community and share this information widely. Distribute resources that explain local laws regarding homelessness.
• Volunteer with Local Organizations: Find or create organizations that support homeless individuals, such as shelters, food banks, mutual aid networks, and outreach programs. Your time and effort can make a significant difference.
• Advocate for Policy Change: Contact local representatives and advocate for policies that protect the rights of unhoused people. Support legislation that prioritizes affordable housing and decriminalizes homelessness.
• Join or Form Coalitions: Engage with local grassroots organizations or start your own coalition focused on fighting the criminalization of homelessness and advocating for systemic change.
• Document Sweeps and Rights Violations: If you witness police sweeps or other rights violations against homeless individuals, document what you see. Take photos, collect testimonies, and share this information with legal aid organizations to support future cases.
• Provide Jail and Court Support: Organize or join groups that offer jail support and court accompaniment for unhoused individuals facing legal challenges. Your presence can provide crucial moral support and help ensure their rights are respected.
• Support Housing First Initiatives: Advocate for and support Housing First models in your community that prioritize providing stable housing without preconditions. Engage with local officials to promote these initiatives.
• Participate in Mutual Aid: Get involved in mutual aid networks that provide direct support to those in need, whether through food distribution, clothing drives, or other essential services.
• Host Workshops and Skill Shares: Organize workshops that provide skills training, such as resume building, cooking, or budgeting. Empowering individuals with skills can help them navigate their situations more effectively.
• Street Outreach: Conduct regular outreach in your community. Bring food, water, hygiene supplies, and other necessities directly to unhoused individuals. Build relationships to understand their needs and how best to support them.
• Raise Awareness on Social Media: Use your platforms to raise awareness about homelessness and advocate for unhoused individuals. Share personal stories, research, and calls to action to engage your community.
• Attend Community Meetings: Participate in city council meetings, town halls, and other public forums where policies affecting homelessness are discussed. Voice your concerns and support for unhoused individuals in these spaces.
• Create Care Packages: Assemble and distribute care packages that include essentials like hygiene products, blankets, food, and water for those living on the streets.
• Connect with Legal Aid Organizations: If you or someone you know needs legal assistance related to homelessness, reach out to organizations that specialize in homeless rights to explore available resources and support.

Outro:

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Molotov Now! We hope you found it informative and inspiring. Our goal with the podcast is to reach out beyond our boundaries and connect the happenings in our small town with the struggles going on in major urban centers. We want to talk to you if your a big city organizer, we think we have a lot you can learn from, and we know you have much to teach us. If you would like to come on the show please email us at sabot_media@riseup.net with the header “Molotov Now!” and we will be in touch about setting up an interview and crafting an episode to feature you.

We want to give a shout out to our friends at:

• C: Sabotage Noise Productions for putting on awesome benefit shows, including one for The Blackflower Collective, and for being all around awesome people who help us with the upcoming events section of this podcast.
• S: The South Florida Anti-Repression Committee who have launched a solidarity campaign for two individuals facing 12 years for an alleged graffiti attack on a fake Christian anti-choice clinic that does not provide any reproductive care. This Federal overreach and use of the FACE Act, an act meant to protect people visiting reproductive clinics from harassment, is unprecedented. To support this solidarity campaign please visit bit.ly/freeourfighters
• C: We want to thank The Blackflower Collective for their continued support and wish them luck in their fundraising efforts. To support them or learn more their website is blackflowercollective.noblogs.org.
• S: Kolektiva, the anarchist mastodon server, is growing faster than ever thanks to Elon Musk’s stupidity as many activists close their accounts for bluer skies as can be seen in the fluctuation of followers over on IGD’s socials, join at kolektiva.social and follow us and other online activists on decentralized federated internet.
• C: Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network is holding a fundraiser for their weekly meals with Food Not Bombs. To donate visit linktr.ee/crmutualaidnet
• S: The Communique is looking for artist and upcoming event submissions, please write to sabot_media@riseup.net to submit your entry.
• C: Thank you to Pixel Passionate for producing our soundtrack, please check out their website at www.radicalpraxisclothing.com and check out their portfolio in our show notes
• S: and Thank you to the Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast Network. We are proud to be members of a network that creates and shares leading critical analysis, news, and actions from an anarchist perspective.

Remember to check out sabot media’s new website for new episodes, articles, comics, and columns. We have new content all the time. Make sure you follow, like, and subscribe on your favorite corporate data mining platform of choice and go ahead and make the switch to federated social media on the kolektiva mastodon server today @AberdeenLocal1312 for updates on Sabot Media projects such as The Harbor Rat Report, The Saboteurs, The Communique, our podcast Molotov Now! and many other upcoming projects.

That’s all for tonight. Please remember to spay and neuter your cats and don’t forget to cast your votes at those who deserve them.
Solidarity Comrades,
This is Molotov Now! Signing off

Music this Episode:

Virtual Bird – Destroy Property

Robber’s Roost – Aint Nobody
Robber’s Roost – Swallow Your Fears

From The Communique:

The Project – Popular Wobbly
Escape The Zoo – Sentient Beer
Horrible Pain – Horrible Pain 7″ [2014]
Folk – The Anarchist Hymn
Robber’s Roost – Breaking Down

Share this post: