“Homelessness is the unfinished business of the Civil Rights Movement,” said Martin Luther King III in the opening video addressing the audience of the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) Leadership Conference in Washington D.C.
The conference was held over the course of two days inviting advocates, service providers, and leaders who have experienced homelessness to discuss strategies for tackling the growing population of homeless people that is taking place across the country.
Panels hosted by leaders in non-profits from across the country discussed topics including racial equity, tenant organizing, foster care, prison-to-homelessness pipeline and film and media for advocacy to name a few.
The NCH has launched its new grassroots campaign “Bring America Home Now” (BAHN), which focuses on the passage of federal legislation “aimed at addressing the interconnected solutions to the decades-long epidemic of homelessness in the United States.”
The campaign changes how the homelessness movement has operated by putting people with “lived experiences” of homelessness at the front of campaign advocacy, policy development and storytelling.
In NCH, 90% of employees have experienced homelessness at one point in their lives. For the organization, and for the movement, this is the campaign’s strength and what they believe will make the campaign truly effective.
“Homeless people should be at the forefront of everything we do,” said Donald Whitehead, NCH Executive Director.
This strategy is made tangible with the Lived Experience Training Academy, a curriculum created by people who have experienced homelessness, to train others with lived experiences to be leaders within their communities by equipping them with tools and resources to make their “voices the centerpiece of strategy and advocacy.”
“We are the ones we’ve been looking for,” said Rosyln Brock, a member of the National Board of Directors of the NAACP, speaking to the packed conference room during day 1, made up mostly of formerly homeless people.
The Lived Experience Training Academy is built upon the strategies of the Civil Rights Movement, strategies that Whitehead views as an effective means of winning public support and putting necessary pressure on national lawmakers.
During the Civil Rights Movement, Black Americans were trained to become leaders in their own communities in classes similar to the BAHN campaign.
Rather than putting people who are disconnected from the experience of being homeless at the forefront of leadership, the NCH is mobilizing and organizing those who have gone through living on the streets and in shelters.
Homelessness continues to grow faster than before the pandemic, without any signs of letting up, as protections from evictions and federal aid begin to fall away.
Ann Olivia, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, believes that “All of our systems are creating more homelessness”. In response to pressures from the public to take action on a growing homeless population, cities are criminalizing homelessness across the country.
In New York City, Mayor Eric Adams has made it easier to arrest homeless people and has ramped up street sweeps to get rid of homeless people sleeping out on the streets.
A growing number of people believe homelessness is a top issue affecting cities today, and people are becoming angrier with politicians and the homeless.
This is not a natural trend in public opinion, according to advocacy leaders such as Mark Horvath, founder of Invisible People, a non-profit dedicated to telling the stories of homeless people in a raw and authentic way. Instead, it’s due to a well-funded homelessness agenda by right-wing organizations that are pushing the message that housing the homeless does not work.
In a Fox News video that Horvath showed during his panel, Jesse Watters says homeless people want to “wander around and live in tents on the sidewalk. You can’t coddle antisocial beings.”
Horvath believes that winning the battle for public opinion is how we win the battle to end homelessness.
However, the reason the right-wing campaign is winning is simple: money. They are well-funded compared to homeless non-profits.
During his panel, Horvath talked about people such as Michael Shellenberger, who believes that homelessness is not an issue of housing or an issue of the economy but rather an issue of individual mental health problems. Shellenberger published a book called “Sanfransicko”, arguing for the need for public funds to go toward mental and drug abuse support rather than housing first.
Shellenberger has been at the center of the anti-homelessness campaign, putting large sums of money, in comparison to homeless advocates such as Horvath, into marketing.
One instance Horvath pointed out during his panel was Shellenberger’s payment of $25,000 to social media personality, Soledad Ursua, to tweet rhetoric claiming that homelessness is not a cause of the housing crisis. Ursua has also published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times arguing that homelessness is a result of individual mental health and drug addiction.
“Are any of you getting funded to tweet good stuff? No, no. Right,” asked Horvath to the panel audience.
Recently, Horvath posted to his social media explaining that his organization Invisible People has had to pause production due to a lack of funding.
The homelessness movement is not just battling the status quo of what already exists, but as people like Horvath have pointed out, advocates are battling those who wish to keep things the same.
“As Martin Luther King Jr. so wisely reminded us that social change does not inevitably happen. It happens because of tireless dedication, and passion, and struggle. And that is all of us,” said Donald Whitehead.