On today’s show, host Matvei Mozhaev speaks with Maria Foscarinis, a principal architect of the 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the first major piece of federal legislation to address homelessness. They discuss her recent book, And Housing for All: The Fight to End Homelessness in America, which details the impact of homelessness on people’s lives and argues that ending homelessness in the US requires the recognition of housing as a basic human right. 

Foscarinis discusses the last four decades of the homeless crisis in the US. She started her career when Regan came to office, slashed housing services, and triggered the crisis of homelessness. Since then, the crisis has only worsened and homelessness has become more normalized. However, Foscarinis says that people are getting better at connecting homelessness with the crisis of affordable housing in the country. 

In her book, Foscarinis interweaves the stories of people experiencing homelessness with policy analysis, attempting to balance the personal narratives with the structural story of policy failures. Mozhaev introduces listeners to Brian Deschane who was offered housing the day after he passed away this Spring. Brian was one of over a thousand Madisonians currently experiencing homelessness. Over 50% of unhoused people in Dane County are people of color, with every 1 out of 100 Black people in Dane County currently homeless. Dane County has struggled to mitigate homelessness, with only a 5% per capita decrease since 2015.

Since the 2024 decision by the Supreme Court that cities can criminalize homelessness, over 150 anti-homeless bills passed across the country. In response to a decade of efforts to criminalize homelessness, Foscarinis describes the initiative called “Housing not Handcuffs” that fights against criminalization and for housing. And as cities also sidestep housing solutions for “sanctioned encampments” and “safe parking lots,” Foscarinis reminds listeners that everyone wants “a safe, decent, affordable home for everyone.”

Maria Foscarinis is a lawyer and principal architect for the 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the first major federal legislation to address homelessness. In 1989, she founded the National Homelessness Law Center to help ensure that federal legislation would be properly implemented. 

Featured image of And Housing for All: The Fight to End Homelessness in America, published by Prometheus Books. 

The post A Safe, Decent, Affordable Home for Everyone appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.