Advocacy

Please join with us in our fight against inequality

In July, 2020 the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced a new proposed rule that would roll back protections from HUD’s 2012 Equal Access Rule, which protects persons experiencing homelessness or intimate partner violence from being denied emergency services based on their gender identity. The new proposal would allow HUD-funded programs to discriminate against transgender and gender non-conforming (GNC) individuals seeking emergency services in homeless and domestic violence shelters. Single-sex or sex-specific programs would be allowed to make a “good faith” determination of sex, deciding whether a person was eligible for safe shelter.

The Raleigh/Wake Partnership to End and Prevent Homelessness believes housing is healthcare. Amid a global pandemic, safe shelter is a critical public health necessity for our community’s most vulnerable populations. EqualityNC reports 30% of North Carolina’s transgendered respondents in a 2015 survey experienced homelessness at some point in their lives and 15% of these respondents avoided staying in a shelter because they feared mistreatment. HUD’s new proposal makes it even harder for transgender and GNC persons to get off the streets and access life-saving services.

Preserving the Equal Access Rule is essential to ensure equitable access to safe and secure housing. The Raleigh/Wake Partnership to End and Prevent Homelessness is against HUD’s harmful proposal and we are not alone in our call for a reversal. Many state and national organizations, as well as individuals, are responding to the proposed rule during the public comment period.

Please join us in our fight against inequality by submitting your comments! Our partners at the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness created a comment template, with suggestions on how to make it unique. Interested persons may submit through the Federal eRulemaking Portal and reference HUD Docket No. FR-6152-P-01, RIN 2506-AC53.

Comments are due to HUD 09/22/2020 at 11:59 pm