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Civil Rights
Visit the links on this page to learn more about NCH’s Civil Rights public policy recommendations, action alerts, and research.
- ACTION ALERT: Help Protect the Privacy Rights of those using Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) (published January 25, 2012)
Issues:
- Hate Crimes Against the Homeless
Over the past 12 years, advocates and homeless shelter workers from around the country have received news reports of men, women and even children being harassed, kicked, set on fire, beaten to death, and even decapitated. From 1999 through 2010, in 47 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, there have been 1,184 acts of violence committed by housed individuals. Those incidents have included setting a man on fire, pushing a sleeping woman into a river, and beating a woman’s face with a tire-iron. In many cases, the attackers have never met the victims, and they don’t benefit materially from the attacks; they are motivated only by a dehumanizing bias against homeless persons. Such attacks deserve to be called what they are: hate crimes.
- Criminalization of Homelessness
- Preserving Voting Rights of People Experiencing Homelessness
Reports:
Hate Crimes Against the Homeless: Violence in Plain View (2010), published Jan. 2012
Hate Crimes Against the Homeless: America's Growing Tide of Violence (2009), published August 2010
A Place at the Table: Prohibitions on Sharing Food with People Experiencing Homelessness
Tent Cities in America: Pacific Coast Report.
Homes Not Handcuffs: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities, a new report by The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and The National Coalition for the Homeless, 2009
Winter Homeless Services: Bringing our Neighbors in from the Cold. Seven Hundred Killed from Hypothermis Annually in United States
“Hate, Violence, and Death on Main Street USA: A Report on Hate Crimes and Violence Against People Experiencing Homelessness, 2008”, August 2009
[find more reports on our Publications page]
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