As longtime housing activist retires, the fight to end homelessness continues.
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At the end of the year, the U.S. got some new figures on homelessness that were not encouraging. Yes, so this is a count that takes place all around the country every January. It's compiled by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden talked with me about it in late December, the day the report came out. And this year it found 770,000 people living in shelters or outside on streets and parks in their cars. That is up to...

18% from last year. 18%. And it is the largest number since they started doing this report in 2007. Yes. It is, I should also note, an undercount. It's widely considered an undercount. This is a snapshot, one night in each place. It does not include people who may be crowding in with family or friends. So the bad news is that the number of unhoused people in the U.S. is at a record high. Or at least it was when the government did the count last January.

The good news is there's reason to believe those numbers have gone down since that national census. In lots of big cities, people who work with homeless populations say things are improving.

Until recently, Jeff Olivet led the government's Interagency Council on Homelessness. We've seen either stabilizing of the numbers or reduction of the numbers in some pretty unlikely places like Phoenix and Los Angeles and Dallas. And to me, what that says is if we keep investing the right way in getting people off the streets and into housing as quickly as possible, we really can see those numbers go down. Wow.

One major policy change last year came from the Supreme Court, and advocates for homeless people were not happy about it. The justices issued a ruling saying it's okay to punish people for sleeping outside, even if they have nowhere else to go. Opponents of the ruling say it basically criminalizes poverty. Supporters say it'll help push people towards homeless services, drug treatment programs, and other resources.

Since the Supreme Court decided that case, more than 100 places around the country have banned people from sleeping outside. Like California's San Joaquin County, east of San Francisco, where Tom Patty is county supervisor. We're not...

hardcore, but we do know that if a person's trying to build a pallet palace with their blue tarps and tents, we say, no, no, no, you're not allowed to do this. You are trespassing. The homeless have no right to turn every park and sidewalk into a place for them to squat.

Donald Trump has said when he's sworn in as president this month, he'll work with states to ban urban camping. Violators of these bans will be arrested, but they will be given the option to accept treatment and services if they're willing to be rehabilitated.

Consider this. While the national debate over homeless policy plays out across the country, a grassroots organization called Project Home has offered resources to homeless people in Philadelphia for decades. We'll talk with the co-founder who just retired after 35 years. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro.

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It's Consider This from NPR. It's been more than 35 years since Sister Mary Scullion co-founded Project Home. Back in 1989, it was just an emergency winter shelter in South Philadelphia. Today, it has a thousand housing units across the city and two businesses that offer jobs to formerly homeless people. As the organization grew, so did Sister Mary's profile.

Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world back in 2009. I spoke with her just before she retired at the end of the year and asked what she thinks sets Project Home apart from other homeless service organizations in the U.S. I think what made Project Home different is that we were able to understand that

Housing or shelter is not enough. People needed health care, the jobs, the education that enable people not only to survive but to thrive. It's so much more than just a roof. It has to be. And a community in which to belong, I think, is also important.

critically important. Dr. Martin Luther King talked about the beloved community and at Project Home, that's something we continue to strive to be, a beloved community where everyone is welcomed and valued. You've become famous for the organization's motto, none of us are home until all of us are home. Where did that sentence come from? That sentence came from

When we first started and we were building 48 units of affordable housing and we had a lot of opposition, including Democrats.

you know, the city leadership that was trying to stop us. So we looked upon this effort as something that was a political movement. We needed to engage everyone in our community to recognize that homelessness affects all of us and that if anyone is homeless, all of us are impacted by that. So again, none of us are free until all of us are free. And another thing,

Example of that was for the Eucharistic Congress, Father Ruppe said, if anyone is hungry anywhere in the world, the Eucharist is incomplete everywhere in the world. So this line is an adaptation. Of many historical movements and efforts to...

help us all recognize that we're part of one human family. You did street outreach even before you co-founded Project Home in 1989. What was it about this cause specifically that spoke to you so much? What spoke to me was when I would

talk with women, many of whom had been deinstitutionalized and were living on the street. Meaning they had been in mental health facilities and were no longer. Deinstitutionalization happened all across the United States in the late 60s and 70s, where people who had been...

forced to live in these mental hospitals, state mental hospitals were supposed to be welcomed back into the community. But the communities and neighborhoods were not set up to be able to provide supportive housing. So it was just a drastic change and many people fell through the cracks and ended up living on the street. As I engaged the women who were living on the street,

got to know them as people. And I asked them, what would they like? Everybody pretty much said the same thing, a job and a home. And to be able to return to my home at night and they were still out there, it just was so unacceptable to me. I mean, the marginalization and having people live out on a bitter cold night is

How could they possibly do that and survive? So once I got to know people as people, there was just no turning back. I mean, they were my friends. They were part of our community. We had to respond in a way that welcomed them home.

If I could bring you up to the present day, the Supreme Court decided a case in June allowing cities to ban people from sleeping and camping in public places, and you spoke out against that ruling. Both presidential candidates talked during the campaign about the lack of affordable housing in the U.S. Which direction do you think the country is moving on this issue that you've devoted your life to? I do believe that most people today are aware that

of the lack of affordable housing and how that impacts not only people who are unsheltered, people who are unsheltered are the tip of the iceberg, the prophetic sign that says something's radically wrong. And I do believe that is now on the political agenda that

People understand something should be done. I mean, I just wonder, I agree with you that there is a growing awareness of the problem of a lack of affordable housing. But as homeless populations continue to grow and as the Supreme Court decides a major case that limits the options for people who don't have housing and we don't see a dramatic, aggressive move to build affordable housing stock, I

I just wonder whether you think the needle is moving in the wrong direction in this country right now. It's totally moving in the wrong direction. And it's acceptable because it's just simply wrong. Is there something that you would encourage ordinary people to do in their daily lives to address homelessness? Sure. All of us can see and acknowledge and affirm homelessness.

another human being as simply that, a human being at a minimum. But I think the social policy is the most impactful way to end and prevent homelessness. And it's not just about building new units. It's about preserving units. It's about helping existing renters and homeowners to afford and keep their homes, you know, safe and upgraded. It's

about each one of us deciding what kind of country do we want to live in and holding our elected officials accountable for how our resources are spent and to...

further a country where everybody can afford a place to live. And that means voting. It means getting involved in the civic life of our neighborhoods and our communities. And it means not putting on our blinders. We have to see

our brothers and sisters. We have to see our brothers and sisters who are not only living on our streets, but in doubled up and unsafe housing conditions. We have to see the kids that are going to movies and all night theater so that people don't know that they're

unsheltered or that they're homeless. We have to see the elderly who's on our street, people who have mental health issues, people who are using substances. We have the capacity, the talent, the resources to provide health care and affordable housing to everyone in our community if we truly believe that none of us are home until all of us are home. That was Sister Mary Scullion, co-founder of Project Home in Philadelphia.

This episode was produced by Matt Ozug, Mark Rivers, and Elena Burnett, with additional reporting from Jennifer Ludden. It was edited by Jeanette Woods. Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.

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