Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Housing Law

Fordham Law School

Homeless advocacy

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Rights As A Functional Guide For Service Provision In Homeless Advocacy Creating Healthy Communities: Ending Homelessness, Nestor M. Davidson Jan 2007

Rights As A Functional Guide For Service Provision In Homeless Advocacy Creating Healthy Communities: Ending Homelessness, Nestor M. Davidson

Faculty Scholarship

Rights-based approaches to advocacy on behalf of homeless persons have long sought to vindicate important dignitary, liberty, and equality interests, as well as establish to entitlements to housing, mental health, substance abuse, and other services. This advocacy has had some success in shaping the systems that define the interaction between homeless persons and the state. Rights paradigms, however, can be undermined by the day-to-day reality of the lives of homeless individuals and families that are often shaped by profound need less for protection from the state than for meaningful support, and entitlement advocacy remains circumscribed by the reality of severely …


Housing First' For The Chronically Homless: Challenges Of A New Service Model, Nestor M. Davidson Jan 2005

Housing First' For The Chronically Homless: Challenges Of A New Service Model, Nestor M. Davidson

Faculty Scholarship

Increasingly in recent years, policymakers have focused their efforts on ending chronic homelessness and, in particular, on individuals grappling with mental illness, substance abuse, and similar challenges. Central to this effort has been the rise of a new model of service provision called Housing First. Housing First reverses the long-standing practice of conditioning housing on compliance with treatment plans or other service requirements, instead providing immediate independent living for chronically homeless individuals with dual or multiple diagnoses and only then making intensive services available. This Commentary reviews this important policy shift and explores some conceptual and practical challenges in moving …