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A Survey of Homelessness Laws The Forum September 2020 Is a House Always a Home?: A Survey of Homelessness Laws Marlei English J.D. Candidate, SMU Dedman School of Law, 2021; Staff Editor for the International Law Review Association Find this and additional student articles at: https://smulawjournals.org/ilra/forum/ Recommended Citation Marlei English, Is a House Always a Home?: A Survey of Homelessness Laws (2020) https://smulawjournals.org/ilra/forum/. This article is brought to you for free and open access by The Forum which is published by student editors on The International Law Review Association in conjunction with the SMU Dedman School of Law. For more information, please visit: https://smulawjournals.org/ilra/. Is a House Always a Home?: A Survey of Homelessness Laws By: Marlei English1 March 6, 2020 Homelessness is a plague that spares no country, yet not a single country has cured it. The type of legislation regarding homelessness in a country seems to correlate with the severity of its homelessness problem. The highly-variative approaches taken by each country when passing their legislation can be roughly divided into two categories: aid-based laws and criminalization laws. Analyzing how these homelessness laws affect the homeless community in each country can be an important step in understanding what can truly lead to finding the “cure” for homelessness rather than just applying temporary fixes. I. Introduction to the Homelessness Problem Homelessness is not a new issue, but it is a current, and pressing issue.2 In fact, it is estimated that at least 150 million individuals are homeless.3 That is about two percent of the population on Earth.4 Furthermore, an even larger 1.6 billion individuals may be living without adequate housing.5 While these statistics are startling, the actual number of individuals living without a home could be even larger because these are just the reported and observable numbers. The definition of what constitutes homelessness varies from country to country. For example, in the United States, according to the government, being homeless includes lacking a fixed and regular nighttime residence; sleeping somewhere not intended for sleeping, like a car or bus station; or living in a temporary shelter.6 The United States also considers individuals fleeing dangerous situations like domestic violence as being homeless.7 This is a significantly broad category of humans. In contrast, the Japanese government only considers individuals “living in certain locations, while overlooking those who are staying in Internet cafes or 24-hour fast food restaurants and the like.”8 In Hong Kong, just a few countries over, these essentially homeless individuals are called “McRefugees.”9 To emphasize the discrepancies that different definitions can cause, in 2018 the Japanese government published 4,977 as the number of homeless people, but non-profits in the country believe that number is two or three times larger.10 Moreover, the number of homeless individuals in many countries appears to be increasing.11 There are many theories for why this is the case, including barriers created by immigration, unsustainable 1 J.D. Candidate, SMU Dedman School of Law, 2021; Staff Editor for the International Law Review Association. 2 See Joseph Chamie, As Cities Grow, So Do the Numbers of Homeless, YALEGLOBAL ONLINE (July 13, 2017), https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/cities-grow-so-do-numbers-homeless. 3 See id. 4 See id. 5 See id. 6 42 U.S.C. § 11302 (2014). 7 Id. 8 Government Survey Identifies 5,534 Homeless People in Japan, NIPPON.COM (June 20, 2018), https://www.nippon.com/en/features/h00221/government-survey-identifies-5-534-homeless-people-in-japan.html. 9 See Wyman Ma & Chermaine Lee, Homeless in Hong Kong: soaring costs fuel housing crisis in Asian financial hub, REUTERS (Jan. 25, 2018), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-property-homelessness/homeless-in- hong-kong-soaring-costs-fuel-housing-crisis-in-asian-financial-hub-idUSKBN1FE38W. 10 See generally Global Homeless Statistics, HOMELESS WORLD CUP FOUND., https://homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/ (last visited Jan. 16, 2020). 11 See id. 1 wages, shortages in affordable housing, ignorance of welfare systems’ aid for homelessness, lack of care for mental health issues, and the creation of laws that are pretexts for criminalizing homelessness. These potential reasons for an increase in homelessness are also reasons given for causing homelessness in general. When considering these potential causes of homelessness, it is important to keep in mind that no one issue is necessarily going to lead to homelessness on its own, but many of these causes go hand in hand, and a combination of two or more is very likely to lead to homelessness. For instance, an immigrant experiencing barriers to accessing housing in a new country due to discrimination often does not have sufficient knowledge of the aid available to him either, meaning that he is experiencing two potential causes of homelessness at once. Hope should not be abandoned in the wake of this information because there are attempts at decreasing homelessness that appear to be working. Finland and its Housing First method is one example of this. Legislation plays a large role in homelessness numbers, with criminalization laws seemingly increasing the numbers and aid-based laws seemingly decreasing numbers. Many of the aid-based laws are usually written to directly attack causes of homelessness, thus it is important to identify and understand these causes. II. Potential Causes of Homelessness A. Barriers Created by Immigration Individuals choose to immigrate to other countries for many reasons. Oftentimes, those reasons, like seeking refuge, do not allow for the time to prepare for living in a new country. Moving to a new country may require learning a new language, taking courses related to certain careers, or passing licensing exams necessary to work.12 There is also the matter of finding new housing, which can be difficult even for individuals with secure sources of income. Acquiring any common source of housing, like a house or apartment, usually requires paying multiple fees that immigrants frequently do not have access to so soon after moving. With career related difficulties recently listed, lack of experience, and discrimination from the citizens, immigrants are forced into low- paying jobs, and the result is often unstable housing situations, undesirable housing, or actual homelessness.13 Furthermore, even when aid is available, many immigrants do not attempt to receive it because they fear deportation or are too ashamed to admit that they need help.14 A last factor driving immigrants into homelessness is that some countries restrict or deny statutory services to them in an attempt to reduce migration, but, in fact, they are just making it even more difficult for immigrants to survive in a new country.15 B. Unsustainable Incomes Owning or renting an adequate home usually costs a significant amount of money, yet the minimum wage in some countries is not enough for an individual to attempt owning or renting a home, much less an adequate one. Some countries do not even have a minimum wage. What an “adequate home” entails varies from country to country, but it can be assumed that it means more 12 See Supporting the Education of Immigrant Students Experiencing Homelessness, NAT’L CTR FOR HOMELESS EDUC., https://nche.ed.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/imm_lia.pdf. 13 See id.; Cat Galley, The Connection Between Homelessness, Immigration, and Displacement, CTR ON HUMAN RIGHTS EDUC. (Mar. 1, 2018), https://www.centeronhumanrightseducation.org/connection- homelessness-immigration-displacement/. 14 See Galley, supra note 12. 15 See The plan to end homelessness, CRISIS.ORG.UK, https://www.crisis.org.uk/ending-homelessness/the-plan-to- end-homelessness-full-version/solutions/chapter-12-ending-migrant-homelessness/ (last visited Jan. 29, 2019). 2 than a tent under a highway, hut in the slums, box in an alley, shelter full of strangers, or many other forms of living situations that individuals are in. Furthermore, a large number of adults are forced to work for the lowest wage possible due to multiple reasons, including, but not limited to, a disability, inability to receive higher education, or lack of transportation to higher paying careers.16 This inability to earn enough to pay housing costs, often coupled with other factors such as ignorance of how to receive aid, can lead to homelessness. To illustrate, imagine an individual (“Donald”) lives in, and grew up in, an apartment in a lower socioeconomic area of a city where the only businesses within walking distance are fast food restaurants and gas stations, and there is no public transportation. Donald’s single mother lived paycheck to paycheck, and now he does too, so he cannot afford his own means of transportation. Donald also lives in a state where dropping out of school early is legal, and he did so in order to help make money for his family. With no transportation, he works as a cook at a fast food restaurant making minimum wage. His mother passed away last year after being hospitalized for a while, leaving him with medical bills that he took out a loan for. On top of all this, his apartment complex and all the surrounding complexes are raising rent in an attempt to rebrand their community. Donald’s earnings are no longer enough to pay his rent, bills, and take care of himself. He has no known family he can ask for help, and he has no idea that he may qualify for government
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