Anthony Wann Williams, Homeless Advocate dies

Williams died May 8, 2023, in Baltimore. Born in East Baltimore, he grew up in the foster system and later in Baltimore, was a fierce advocate for the rights of the poor and unhoused. He focused on identifying the barriers people experiencing homelessness faced, what were the solutions, and how they could be implemented, while making certain that the conversation was led by those affected. “His impact was  immeasurable,” said Rachel Kutler of Housing Our Neighbors (HON), a collective of people experiencing homelessness and their allies and advocates that Williams co-founded in 2012 and helped lead.

A writer, photographer and poet, Williams documented his early life on the streets and in the abandoned buildings in a play, “The King of Howard Street" based on the portraits he wrote of the people with whom he once lived. He also wrote of his journey of survival in composition notebooks, emphasizing the bonds and struggles of the homeless communities.

While living at the Bellevue Men’s Shelter in New York, he met Lewis Haggins Jr., and the two co-founded Picture the Homeless in 1999. The group aims to promote the voices and stories of unhoused people into mainstream media and policy discussions via collective organizing and sharing the stories of people experiencing homelessness.

In Baltimore, Williams regularly fought to include those who were or had been homeless in the decision-making processes of programs that affected unhoused people. He was co-chair of the city’s Lived Experience Advisory Committee. Williams also was an early participant in the New York City Continuum of Care and the Baltimore City Continuum of Care, a program set up by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to guide housing and homelessness spending. 

During the coronavirus epidemic, Williams advocated for Baltimore’s unhoused, criticizing the homeless services’ office for he felt was not able to develop a comprehensive plan to use American Rescue Plan Act funds to move away from its system of congregate living facilities.

His longtime friend and fellow Picture the Homeless organizer, Lynn Lewis recorded hours of interviews with him for an oral history project. 

Williams was honored at an August 22, 2023 celebration of life at St. Vincent de Paul in Baltimore.

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Read the January 15, 2024 Baltimore Sun obituary.

Read the December 31, 2023 Baltimore Brew article.

Read the September 5, 2023 Baltimore Beat article.

Injustice, Inc's Author to Speak at HPRP's Free Speaker Forum on September 20th

Next Wednesday, September 20th: HPRP's Speaker Series!

On September 20th, you are invited to attend the Homeless Persons Representation Project (HPRP)'s kickoff of their 2023-2024 speaker series. Speaking will be University of Baltimore School of Law Professor Daniel Hatcher, Esq., and he will discuss his new book, Injustice, Inc.: How America's Justice System Commodifies Children and the Poor (University of California Press, 2023).

When: Wednesday, September 20th, 5:30 - 7:30 PM

Where: Enoch Pratt Central Library (400 Cathedral St., Baltimore, MD 21201), Wheeler Auditorium

This talk will be moderated by Youth Action Board Co-Chair Levy Johnson and Jenny Egan, Esq., Chief Attorney for the Juvenile Division of the Public Defender in Baltimore and co-founder of the Baltimore Action Legal Team.

This event is free, but registration is encouraged. Given the COVID-19 surge, masking is strongly encouraged and this event will be recorded for those unable to attend.

Here is a summary of the speaker's book:

From UC Press: "Injustice, Inc. exposes the ways in which justice systems exploit America's history of racial and economic inequality to generate revenue on a massive scale. With searing legal analysis, Daniel L. Hatcher uncovers how courts, prosecutors, police, probation departments, and detention facilities are abandoning ethics to churn vulnerable children and adults into unconstitutional factory-like operations. Hatcher reveals stark details of revenue schemes and reflects on the systemic racialized harm of the injustice enterprise. 

"He details how these corporatized institutions enter contracts to make money removing children from their homes, extort fines and fees, collaborate with debt collectors, seize property, incentivize arrests and evictions, enforce unpaid child labor, maximize occupancy in detention and "treatment" centers, and more. Injustice, Inc. underscores the need to unravel these predatory operations, which have escaped public scrutiny for too long."

                        

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Source: Homeless Persons Representation Project email, September 13, 2023.

 HUD RELEASES NEW HOMELESS COUNT

The key points in the just-released 2022 AHAR: Part 1 - PIT Estimates of Homelessness in the U.S. are:

• Between 2020 and 2022, the overall number of people experiencing homelessness increased by less than 1% (1,996 people).
• However, between 2021 and 2022, sheltered homelessness increased by 7%, or 22,504 people. 
• A total of 582,462 people experienced homelessness on a single night in January 2022. 
• 60% were staying in sheltered locations—emergency shelters, safe havens, or transitional housing programs.
• 40% were in unsheltered locations such as on the street, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not suitable for human habitation.

The report said that a possible cause for the increase in sheltered homelessness was the easing of pandemic-related restrictions some emergency shelter providers were using during the 2021 PIT count. These restrictions included reducing shelter capacity to allow for more space between people sleeping in congregate settings to reduce their exposure risk. The total number of shelter beds increased between 2021 and 2022, probably because of increased pandemic-related funding that supported additional non-congregate shelter beds. The number of veterans experiencing homelessness declined by 11% (4,123 fewer people) between 2020 and 2022. In 2022, 40,238 fewer veterans were experiencing homelessness than in 2009, when these data were first reported, a drop of nearly 55%. The 2022 report also provides estimates of chronic homelessness as well as data about people experiencing homelessness who are veterans, children, and youth.

HUD released its 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) Part 1 to Congress on December 19, 2022. The AHAR provides national estimates of homelessness, including demographic characteristics, service use patterns, and the capacity to house people experiencing homelessness. The report is based on Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) data regarding persons who experience homelessness during a 12-month period, point-in-time counts of people experiencing homelessness on one day in January, and data about the inventory of shelter and housing available in a community.

The 2022 AHAR Part 1 outlines the key findings of the Point-In-Time (PIT) count and Housing Inventory Count (HIC) that were conducted in January 2022. 

To view all AHARs since 2007, visit the AHAR page.

HUD User is a great source for various information about housing and housing trends.

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Source: HUD release, December 19, 2022.

 HOMELESS INFORMATION: MARYLAND

Search for Services

• Help hotlines
• Shelter
• HUD Resource Locator
• 
  

Are you at risk of losing your home?

• Contact a housing counselor
• Emergency rental assistance
• Avoid foreclosure
• Help with your utility bills
• 
  

Other Maryland Resources

Food banks

• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
• Homeless service groups
• Legal assistance
• Social Security offices
• Homeless Veterans
• United Way
• Jobs and job training
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• Source: US Department of HUD at https://www.hud.gov/states/maryland/homeless.

Fewer Homeless Veterans Using Shelters, Study Finds

A Quarter of Homeless are Veterans

Among the various findings in a just-released government report entitled "Veteran Homelessness: A Supplemental Report to the 2010 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress" by the U. S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of Veteran Affairs, as reported in the New York Times - are:

• Homeless veterans are most likely to be middle-aged white men with a disability.
• Younger veterans are more than twice as likely to be homeless than non-Veterans in the same age group.
• California has the most homeless veterans of any state, about 25% of the total.
• The number of veterans who used emergency shelters or transitional housing for the homeless in 2010 dropped 3% from the year before, to 144,842, from 149,465.
• Veterans continue to be overrepresented in the nation’s homeless population. They are 13% of all homeless adults in shelters, although just over 9% of the total adult population. Once veterans fall into poverty, a higher percentage of them become homeless, about one in nine.

New Approach to Getting Homeless Off the Streets Is Working

At the Safe Havens in New York City, which started in 2007, nonprofit groups help homeless adults find permanent homes with adjacent social services. The City said it had been able to lure them off the streets by opening smaller and more welcoming shelters, averaging 40 beds. The City's Department of Homeless Services has also contracted with one nonprofit group in each borough to scour the streets around the clock, seven days a week, and persuade homeless people to move inside. The number of single, homeless people in the borough has fallen 80% since 2005, according to a City estimate. Read the October 17, 2011 New York Times article.