“What you see here is worse than in 1997, and I don’t know what will happen because my house is under water and I don’t know if I will even return to it,” one storm evacuee said.
Extreme flooding has claimed the lives of at least seven people in Central and Eastern Europe and forced thousands to flee their homes over the weekend.
Storm Boris—a low pressure system—has been lashing the area since Thursday, with major cities seeing a month’s worth of rain and some areas seeing their heaviest rainfall in 100 years between Saturday and Sunday.
After personally participating in the forced displacement of homeless people in a Los Angeles encampment, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday threatened to withhold funding from counties that don’t sufficiently crack down on the unhoused.
Buoyed by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court’s recent City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson ruling—which was welcomed by Newsom and other Democratic leaders like San Francisco Mayor London Breed who filed amicus briefs in the case—the governor issued an executive order last month directing officials to clear out homeless encampments, which have proliferated amid rampant economic inequality and stratospheric housing prices in the nation’s most populous state.
“Maybe the right-wing justices could empathize with the most vulnerable Americans if they spent less time jet-setting on luxury vacations on their wealthy benefactors’ dime,” said one critic.
Homeless encampment in Downtown Los Angeles over the freeway in 2021. Photo: Levi Clancy/Wikimedia Commons/CC
“SCOTUS just criminalized homelessness.”
So said numerous legal experts and advocates for the unhoused Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing supermajority ruled that local governments can enforce bans on sleeping outdoors, regardless of whether municipalities are able to offer them shelter space.
In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the justices ruled in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson that officials can criminalize sleeping and camping on public property including parks, even when housing options are unavailable or unaffordable.
“Where are they supposed to sleep? Are they supposed to kill themselves not sleeping?” asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor of unhoused people who have been barred from sleeping outside in Grants Pass, Oregon.
As housing rights advocates and people who have been unhoused themselves rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court Monday to demand an end to the criminalization of homelessness, the court’s three liberal justices demanded to know how the city of Grants Pass, Oregon can penalize residents who take part in an act necessary for human survival—sleeping—just because they are forced to do so outside.
After an attorney representing Grants Pass, Thomas Evangelis, described sleeping in public as a form of “conduct,” Justice Elena Kagan disputed the claim and reminded Evangelis that he was presenting a legal argument in favor of policing “a biological necessity.”
Outrage spread Friday after the story about a pastor in Ohio who was arrested and charged for opening his church to homeless people when extreme cold weather struck his town gained national attention.
Chris Avell, the pastor of an evangelical church called Dad’s Place in Bryan, Ohio, pleaded not guilty last Thursday to charges that he broke 18 restrictions in zoning code when he gave shelter to people who might otherwise have frozen to death.
“Without significant and sustained federal investments to make housing affordable for people with the lowest incomes, the affordable housing and homelessness crises in this country will only continue to worsen,” warned one campaigner.
A homeless encampment in Minneapolis January 2023 Screenshot: KARE
The number of people in shelters, temporary housing, and unsheltered settings across the United States set a new record this year, “largely due to a sharp rise in the number of people who became homeless for the first time.”
That’s a key takeaway from an annual report released Friday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday passed a resolution demanding “an immediate humanitarian cease-fire” in Israel’s two-month war on Gaza after the U.S. last week used its permanent member status to veto a similar Security Council measure.
The resolution also demands “that all parties comply with their obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law, notably with regard to the protection of civilians,” as well as “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, as well as ensuring humanitarian access.”
“Facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, I urge the council to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe and appeal for a humanitarian cease-fire to be declared.”
António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations during opening session of the High Level Segment at the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council. 27 February 2023. UN Photo / Jean Marc Ferré
With over 16,000 Palestinians dead just two months into Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday demanded immediate action by the U.N. Security Council.
For the first time since becoming secretary-general nearly seven years ago, Guterres invoked Article 99, a rarely used section of the U.N. Charter empowering him to bring to the attention of the council “any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”
“The last thing Americans need is a Bezos-backed investment company further consolidating single-family homes and putting homeownership out of reach for more and more people. Housing should be a right, not a speculative commodity.”
Among the three richest people on the planet, mega-billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos received some praise last week for announcing approximately $120 million in donations to a number of groups fighting the scourge of homelessness in the United States.
“It’s a privilege to support these orgs in their inspiring mission to help families regain stability,” Bezos wrote in an Instagram post touting the multiple grants to 38 individual nonprofits in 22 states.
The Creek Fire burns vegetation near a road on Camp Pendleton, California, Dec., 24, 2020. Photo: Public Domain
Most Americans are aware that with housing costs on the rise, more and more of us are experiencing periods of homelessness. Based on the relative dearth of national coverage, I presume far fewer of us are aware that major insurance companies have begun pulling out of areas identified as being at heightened risk due to climate change, leaving homeowners in the lurch. I wrote about the impact on Florida in July, but it turns out the problem is much larger than a single state, with California also heavily affected.
Over the next few years, it seems likely these two problems – unaffordable housing and unaffordable insurance in at-risk areas – will spiral into a potentially catastrophic cycle. Not only will some Americans be forced to abandon their homes, but the housing in these areas at high risk of damage from storms or wildfires will likely stand empty (as long as homes continue to stand at all), all of which will further drive demand up in a housing market that already prices out far too many people.
