This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| Housing Not Handcuffs | |
|---|---|
| Name | Housing Not Handcuffs |
| Type | Advocacy campaign |
| Founded | 2013 |
| Founders | Matt Desmond |
| Location | United States |
| Focus | Homelessness, Criminalization, Housing policy |
Housing Not Handcuffs
Housing Not Handcuffs is a social justice campaign and policy movement focused on ending the criminalization of homelessness by prioritizing housing and supportive services over punitive enforcement. The campaign intersects with movements addressing urban poverty, civil liberties, and public health and engages policymakers, advocates, scholars, and service providers across municipal, state, and federal levels. It has influenced litigation, legislation, and program development while drawing attention from academics, activists, and media institutions.
Housing Not Handcuffs frames the criminalization of homelessness alongside debates involving United States Constitution, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Department of Justice (United States), U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, American Civil Liberties Union, National Coalition for the Homeless, Human Rights Watch, European Court of Human Rights, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University, University of Chicago, New York University, University of Michigan, Stanford University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgetown University Hospital, Kaiser Permanente, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, MacArthur Foundation, Brookings Institution, Urban Institute, RAND Corporation, Pew Research Center, National Alliance to End Homelessness, Coalition for the Homeless, Shelter Partnership, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, Seattle Human Services Department, Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, Houston Health Department, Boston Public Health Commission, Philadelphia Office of Homeless Services.
The movement emerged in the 2010s amid scholarship and activism associated with figures and institutions such as Matthew Desmond, Peter Edelman, Michelle Alexander, Bryan Stevenson, Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Paul Farmer, Sandy Bois, Alex S. Vitale, Lawrence Lessig, Sherrilyn Ifill, Van Jones, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, Patrisse Cullors, Black Lives Matter, National Law Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Atlantic, ProPublica, The Marshall Project, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, CNN, PBS NewsHour, Al Jazeera, Time (magazine), The New Yorker, Vox (website), Mother Jones, Slate (magazine), HuffPost by linking grassroots campaigns, legal advocacy groups, and university research centers to protests, policy memos, and strategic litigation.
Advocates promote models including Housing First, Permanent Supportive Housing, Rapid Re-Housing, Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, Section 8 (housing), Community Development Block Grant, Continuum of Care (homeless assistance), Fair Housing Act, McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 compliance strategies, and integrated approaches promoted by World Health Organization and United Nations Human Rights Council reports, aligning with funders and researchers at Urban Institute, National Bureau of Economic Research, RAND Corporation, Brookings Institution, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Open Society Foundations.
The initiative has intersected with litigation and statutes involving entities such as Martin v. City of Boise, Pottinger v. City of Miami, Jones v. City of Los Angeles, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, U.S. Supreme Court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Court of Appeals, New York State Court of Appeals, California Supreme Court, United States Congress, State of California Legislature, New York State Legislature, City of Los Angeles City Council, San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Seattle City Council, Chicago City Council, Boston City Council, Philadelphia City Council, United States Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development enforcement actions, and legal briefs filed by American Civil Liberties Union and National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.
Municipal and nonprofit implementations appear in programs run by Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, Seattle Human Services Department, Houston Continuum of Care, Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, Boston Public Health Commission, Philadelphia Office of Homeless Services, NYC Department of Homeless Services, Coalition for the Homeless (New York), Shelter Partnership (Los Angeles), Covenant House, National Alliance to End Homelessness, Catholic Charities USA, Salvation Army (United States), Volunteers of America, Roots Community Health Center, Health Care for the Homeless, Community Solutions, and pilot projects evaluated by Harvard Kennedy School, Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Critics include commentators and scholars associated with Heather Mac Donald, Charles Murray, Milton Friedman-influenced think tanks, American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, Manhattan Institute, Hoover Institution, and some municipal officials in Phoenix, Arizona, Houston, Texas, Las Vegas, Nevada, Miami, Florida, and Jacksonville, Florida, who argue for enforcement-oriented approaches; disputes also involve litigators from Pacific Legal Foundation and policy analysts at Reason Foundation, with debates appearing in outlets such as The New York Post, National Review, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Bloomberg News.
Empirical evaluations have been conducted by researchers at National Bureau of Economic Research, Urban Institute, RAND Corporation, Brookings Institution, Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rutgers University, University of Michigan, University of Pennsylvania, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, King's College London, London School of Economics, and funders including Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and MacArthur Foundation—studies measuring outcomes related to Homelessness in the United States, health utilization patterns documented by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, criminal justice contacts analyzed by Bureau of Justice Statistics, and housing stability metrics aligned with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reporting.