Coronavirus: New York Won’t Close Schools Because Homeless Kids Have Nowhere Else to Go

For many thousands of students across New York City and the United States, school is the only place they receive regular meals, shelter, medical care, and other vital services.

Alan Macleod
By Alan Macleod
coronavirus New York Feature photo

As the number of cases of COVID-19 in the tri-state area rises to over 150, Governor Andrew Cuomo has declared a state of emergency across New York State. Local universities like Hofstra, Columbia and Yeshiva have shut their doors on students today. But the city has no plans to close public k-12 schools – because tens of thousands of homeless

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This Christmas, Over Half a Million Americans Will Struggle with Homelessness

The government estimates ending homelessness would cost around $20 billion, less than Americans spend on Christmas decorations, yet there appears to be little appetite to address the growing problem.

Alan Macleod
By Alan Macleod
Homeless Christmas Feature photo

While millions of Americans celebrate Christmas this year with loved ones, carving turkey and sharing gifts, others are not so fortunate. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, over half a million of us will spend Christmas on the streets. The government agency estimates that on any given day, around 553,000 Americans are

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Wealthy San Franciscans Raising Money to Block Homeless Shelter is Latest Example of Rich Disintegrating Society

The irony of wealthy Silicon Valley employees trying to block a local homeless shelter, as CBS notes, is that homelessness is on the rise in the Bay Area in no small part owing to Silicon Valley itself.

Alan Macleod
By Alan Macleod
Homeless | San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO -- Residents of San Francisco’s South Beach are organizing to stop a homeless shelter in their affluent neighborhood, having crowdfunded tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of days to fight their legal battle with authorities. A 2.3-acre vacant lot in the shadow of the Bay Bridge has been identified as a prime spot to add 200

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Criminalizing Homeless for Sleeping Outside Is Cruel, Federal Appeals Court Rules

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recognized sitting, lying, or sleeping are all “universal and unavoidable consequences of being human.”

Kevin Gosztola
By Kevin Gosztola
homeless

A federal appeals court ruled the Eighth Amendment against cruel and inhuman punishment prohibits the city of Boise from prosecuting homeless individuals who sleep outside on public property when they have no home or bed in a shelter. Six current and former residents of Boise, Idaho, sued the city over two ordinances that were used to

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Hepatitis Spikes as Poverty and Isolation Take Hold Among America’s Forgotten

What’s happening in Michigan is the largest outbreak of hepatitis A in the state’s history. But Michigan is hardly unique: In nearby Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky — and as far away as San Diego, Salt Lake City, and New York City — the number of hepatitis A cases is spiking sharply.

Jon Jeter
By Jon Jeter
Christine Wade sits among her children in front of their donated tent in the city-sanctioned encampment on a parking lot in San Diego. They are, from left, Shawnni, 12, Roland, 4, Rayahna, 3, Jaymason, 2, Brooklyn, 8, and Shaccoya, 14. The Wade family is among several hundred people living in the city's first campground open for the homeless, set up to curb the worst Hepatitis A outbreak in the United States in decades. Gregory Bull | AP

DETROIT -- The first signs that something was amiss surfaced in the weeks before the 2016 election, when public-health officials began to notice one patient after another walking into a clinic, or hospital emergency room in the Detroit metropolitan area complaining of the same symptoms: nausea and vomiting, pains in their stomach and joints,

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As Chicago Removes More Homeless Residents, a Federal Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Challenging Evictions

Officials continue to remove homeless people and fail to provide affordable housing.

Kevin Gosztola
By Kevin Gosztola
A homeless person takes shelter under a bridge in Chicago, January 19, 2016. (Photo: David Wilson/Flickr/cc)

A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against the city of Chicago’s evictions of homeless people, even as officials continue to remove homeless people and fail to provide affordable housing. Andy Thayer, an activist with Uptown Tent City Organizers (UTCO), requested a public assembly permit for a protest encampment at Stewart Mall after the city

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