Homeless Organizing

The United States has a long history of organizing by and for those dispossessed by the nation's economic and political structures. In the decades between the Civil War and World War II, periodic recessions and depressions led to sporadic public demonstrations by those thrown out of work. In 1894, masses of men known as “Coxey's Army,” many homeless as well as jobless, traveled by foot, train, and boat from all over the country to converge on Washington, demanding the establishment of a public works program to employ them. In the early years of the twentieth century, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) more systematically organized those on the fringes of society. The IWW was particularly successful in winning more decent conditions for the transient workers of the logging industry, known as “timber beasts” because they carried all their worldly goods on their backs from one job to the next. The Great Depression saw a good deal of organizing concerned with issues of housing—anti-eviction actions, for example—as well as unemployment.

But it wasn't until the late 1970s that organizers first began attacking the issue of homelessness per se. Their efforts were precipitated by the explosive growth in the homeless population and galvanized by two watershed events. The first was the November 1978 occupation of the National Visitors' Center in Washington, D.C., by members of the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV). This activist group, with origins in the anti–Vietnam War movement, had been operating a soup kitchen for the previous decade, and demanding the creation of an emergency homeless shelter. The second landmark [Page 221]was a class action lawsuit filed by attorney Robert Hayes against the City and State of New York, arguing that a constitutional right to shelter existed in New York State—a suit that ultimately succeeded in establishing a local right to shelter. Legal challenges and direct action aimed at governmental officials have remained the basic weapons of anti-homelessness activists, although they have also adopted other strategies, including lobbying elites, appealing to public opinion, and advocating research by both academic and popular writers.