(May 5, 2023, Washington, DC) – The National Homelessness Law Center is outraged over the strangulation and murder of Jordan Neely Monday, May 1, 2023. The Law Center condemns the NYPD, Mayor Eric Adams, and Governor Kathy Hochul for their failure to hold Jordan’s vigilante killer responsible, and for their subsequent efforts to shield his murderer and smear a murder victim. But these government officials’ statements and actions are symptomatic of the broader problem that led to this tragedy—a toxic cultural obsession with anti-Blackness and dehumanization of the poor.

As the national legal group dedicated to ending and preventing homelessness, we seek to elevate a reality already deeply understood by unhoused communities and their allies: that racialized, state-sanctioned brutality occurs with disproportionate force and frequency against both the Black and the unsheltered communities. Moreover, it is beyond dispute that marginalized people of color continue to be significantly overrepresented among the unhoused. Accordingly, it is the Law Center’s responsibility to highlight how these factors intersect primarily to encourage fear of and violence against poor Black New Yorkers like Jordan Neely.

Read full Statement: National Homelessness Law Center responds to murder of Jordan Neely

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