Amending the Constitution on Hold for Now
Another bill that would have taken the idea of a right to housing even further didn’t make the cut.
The proposal from Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Oakland, would have encoded housing as a human right in the state’s constitution.
Last week, Bonta introduced the constitutional amendment, the Housing is a Human Right Act, that would “ensure access to adequate housing for all Californians.”
“I believe we need to do something that meets the problem in scope and scale and in boldness,” Bonta said.
A constitutional amendment has been in the works for months after conversations began in February between Bonta's office and Moms 4 Housing, a group of homeless women and children who took over a vacant home in West Oakland to protest investors driving up home prices and leaving properties empty amid a homeless crisis.
Carroll Fife, the director of Oakland’s Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a nonprofit that helped organize Moms 4 Housing, says their call to action has only grown louder amid the pandemic.
“Out of all of the things that we have to worry about in the world, the primary need for shelter — for safe, dignified shelter — should not be one of the things that keep you up at night,” Fife said.
Other advocates for housing as a human right lauded Bonta’s proposal as an important step toward meeting California’s housing crisis.
“For too long we've known that housing hasn't been recognized as a human right and certainly hasn't been implemented as a human right,” said Eric Tars, legal director at the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
"right" - Google News
May 21, 2020 at 08:11PM
https://ift.tt/3gcG1ur
Will California Guarantee Housing as a Right? Here's How the Pandemic Is Shaping the Debate - KQED
"right" - Google News
https://ift.tt/32Okh02
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Will California Guarantee Housing as a Right? Here's How the Pandemic Is Shaping the Debate - KQED"
Post a Comment