#the Diné are being done hella fucking dirty

[decolonize-the-everything]

Housing insecurity is racist & violent

"Seventy-five national, state, territorial, and local domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking organizations filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) urging it to support the rights of people who are homeless, including unhoused survivors, in City of Grants Pass, Ore. v. Johnson. This case is one of the most important SCOTUS cases regarding homelessness in the past 40 years. The amicus brief, authored by the National Housing Law Project and Sexual Violence Law Center, argues that housing is extremely limited for gender-based violence survivors, often forcing them to make impossible choices between sleeping outside or suffering continued violence. Criminalizing survivors will only increase their and their families’ risk of violence, trauma, and housing insecurity."

Article from July 29:

Housing advocates across Indian Country say Native Americans and Alaska Natives likely will feel the full weight of a June 28 Supreme Court ruling that has cleared the way for cities to enforce bans on unsheltered people sleeping outside in public places. Native Americans experience homelessness at a disparate rate. Advocates say the housing crisis is a reflection of our society’s unwillingness to address systemic issues.

“It’s criminalizing poverty,” said attorney Caroline LaPorte, who is an immediate descendant of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians. “We are much more comfortable with putting, and paying, for people to be incarcerated.” LaPorte is the director of the STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Resource Center, a project of the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center, and she is the board chairman for the StrongHearts Native Helpline. STTARS focuses on the intersection of housing insecurity and gender-based violence. A lawyer, she said the Supreme Court’s decision was enraging. “Everybody belongs in our communities. They deserve to be safe, and it is our responsibility. We are required to make sure that those people have the things that they need,” LaPorte said.[...]

Announced on June 28 in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the court found that outdoor sleeping bans don’t violate the Eighth Amendment, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment.