Shadow Report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee For the United States’ Review of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The U.S. will soon be up for review by the ICCPR. The Committee has already condemned the U.S. in its criminalization of homelessness as it raised “concern of discrimination and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.” We are asking the Committee to extend its attention to four specific practices that have emerged since 2014:
- Increased funding for national and state level criminalization
- Use of federal police to enforce criminalization
- Criminalization of people who provide homeless communities with food and other aid
- Expansion of involuntary commitment against unhoused people experiencing mental health crisis
We are calling on the State Party to abolish the criminalization of homelessness, including involuntary commitment, and to reallocate funding towards evidenced-based solutions such as #HousingFirst.
