>> Homelessness, justice, and action as the city experiences a housing crisis, a frank conversation with the advocates, volunteers, and journalists who were fighting for the rights and dignity of the homeless.

Their thoughts of what needs to be done to ensure that every New Yorker has a place to call home.

MetroFocus starts right now.

♪ >> This is MetroFocus, with Rafael Pi Roman, Jack Ford, and Jenna Flanagan.

MetroFocus is made possible by the Peter G Peterson fund, the D'Agostino foundation, Barbara Zuckerberg, and by Jody and John Arnhold.

Dr. Robert C and Tina Sohn foundation.

A stage of Roland Karlen.

The JPB foundation.

Jenna: We are taking a deeper look at housing inequality in our country with a focus on homelessness and how the media reports on it.

W that had a virtual town hall series called close to home which examine housing inequality for a variety of angles and perspectives.

The town hall tackled how we should fight the increasing criminalization of homelessness and is it the right to shelter enough to meeting the call of the moment or an essential starting place?

As part of our initiative, we welcome three panelists who recently took part in the close to home series, to share their reflections.

First we would like to welcome Donald H Whitehead Junior, he is the executive director of the national coalition for the homeless.

He has worked on homelessness recovery, and racial equity for more than 25 years.

He experienced homelessness firsthand for five years.

Welcome to MetroFocus.

Donald: I appreciate the opportunity and look forward to the conversation today.

Jenna: I would like to welcome Kelly Hall Tompkins, she has the founder and director of music kitchen for the sole.

A program that brings classical music performances to homeless shelters in New York and other cities.

The name -- the New York Times named her the New Yorker of the year for her outreach.

Welcome to MetroFocus!

Kelly: I look forward to a great discussion as well!

Jenna: Last, but not least, I would like to welcome Jessell, a Baltimore-based journalist that covers criminal justice, public education, and democracy are let's such as the Atlantic, Baltimore -- in publications such as the Atlantic and the Baltimore beat.

The increasing criminalization we are seeing for homeless people and I think this would be an issue that would be sensitive to a lot of New Yorkers right now as we are dealing with a criminal case where the -- a homeless person in crisis in a mental health crisis in public has turned into a criminal case about whether or not someone had the right to subdue and unfortunately causing their untimely death.

How do we get to this point -- did we get to this point?

Donald: Thank you, that is an important question, we have always had the demonization of the poor in America.

From its founding, were causes were created at the beginning of this country that went into the mid-1970's.

The issue of the criminalization of homelessness that started with the demonization of poor people in general.

During the Reagan administration there were huge cutbacks in programs.

We have seen a change in the demographics in the homeless population.

To believe that has impact on how people are being treated -- we believe that has an impact on how people are being treated.

In many cities there is a law that makes it illegal to be homeless.

The population of people on the streets in tents has grown dramatically and cities in response to that have started this practice of criminalization.

What they have done is arrest people for things like sleeping or sitting or standing in public.

The real core of the issue is that the criminalization absolutely does nothing to end homelessness.

People cycle in and out of jail, sometimes it is a forced institutionalization.

None of that resulted housing.

It is a growing phenomenon in the country and it has started to filter into some of our more progressive communities.

It is an issue that we need a a resolution to and the solution is adequate and safe, affordable housing.

Jenna: I want to get your perspective, especially with your organization, I would assume that a classical music performance is not something people would associate with the homeless shelter?

Why did you feel that was something not only worth doing but important to do across the country?

Kelly: thank you for the question.

When I moved to New York, I did not put two and two together with my founding of music kitchen but when I went to New York I remember that the music was used in an station to try to remove homeless people, to deter them from congregating, oddly enough.

When I was a student we would play classical music live and draw large crowds and that was fine.

Classical music was piped in to deter and disperse homeless encampments or crowds of people sleeping or resting or loitering.

When I was looking for a place to run through a solo program in 2004, I ended up doing that for the soup kitchen where I was a volunteer cook at my church.

It was so profoundly moving to the people and to be, I did not know that would be the case, I was without a proper accompaniment.

When I had that initial experience, had the idea that bringing classical music to people regularly is something that celebrates and acknowledges their humanity, our shared humanity.

It gives them solace and inspiration to transcend the circumstances that they find themselves in.

You are right.

It was an uphill battle to get funding, to understand the value.

It is not the life and death type of level of service that is required in a shelter, the shelter and food and medical care and all of that, very close to that is our mental health and our self-expression, our expression of self-government we have to put display in or be the recipient of something artistic for our own humanaity.

-- humanity.

It is important.

I have noticed the changes and just the effects that concerts have had over the years.

Jenna: I want to get your perspective on the media's responsibility in how the public at large is viewing homeless -- people without homes?

I asked that question because as a member of the media it myself, I know that we hold immense power in our ability to shape public perspective and conversation.

From your perspective as a journalist, where does the media fall in terms of how we talk about people who lack a home?

Jenna: I think the media --Donald: I think the media need to reckon with their role that they have played in demonizing homeless people.

Jessell: Especially people of color.

There is a relationship between wealth and race in this country, needs to be examined.

Looking at the racial wealth gap , we have policies like segregation and redlining that leads to this world gap -- wealth gap.

I do not think you can take a conversation about equity without talking about how policies have created poverty and the racial disparities we are looking at.

I think the media has a responsibility to talk about solutions.

We did talk about problems all day but without solutions we are not giving the public the information they need to be educated participants in our democracy.

We need to look at the actions cities are taking and hold them accountable.

Places like Vienna have and many other European cities have effectively ended homelessness.

I went to Amsterdam and I did not -- you do not see the same level of homelessness.

You see in the United States and in major cities.

You see other places, other countries have stopped looking at housing as a commodity.

I have looked at it as a human right.

If the goal is to have a more equal society, to have a society where you feel safe to go outside and people feel valued, that is a place where we can start.

We cannot keep looking at the U.S. as beyond compare.

Our societies are not that different.

Need to look at policies about giving rights to developers.

Millions of dollars have been given to developers in the last few decades to build affordable housing and very few, a handful of actual units have been created.

This past problem of housing insecurity and homelessness persists.

Journalists need to take a deeper look and do their job and holding officials accountable.

Jenna: I want to come back and build off of what he was talking about, in terms of how we view homeless people and what he is describing as human rights issues?

The other side of the coin seems to be that as we criminalize homelessness, people might say I want to be able to walk in my neighborhood and not have people accost me for money or something?

I want to be able to comfortably take my child out in the stroller and not be concerned someone might come up and try to ask us for money or food or something like that?

How does that fit into how we readjust the way that we are addressing this issue?

As you said, the criminalization of homelessness is not just something that only certain communities are considering.

It seems to be spreading to all communities?

Donald: I think both of them made important points and it comes down to the messaging and I want to share this with people who are struggling with wanting to have a community that is safe and that they do not have to encounter people.

.

Will have a right to housing -- people have the right to housing and two modify housing, after that, but will not be accosting you.

-- people will not be accosting you.

It does not have anything to do with people's choices.

There are choices that could move people in the direction of becoming homeless.

These issues are systemic issues that we have never tackled.

It is systemic racism, or object property -- our abject poverty, but we have force people to go through to get a quality of life in this country is just, it is incomprehensible what we have done to black and brown people -- Black and brown people in this country.

We want safe communities.

The way we do that is we provide resources at the level we never have in this country.

As far as homelessness goes, we have never provided resources at the level to be able to really be able to address the issue of homelessness.

It has always been a piecemeal approach.

We have all of these populations pitted against the other.

When your Ada's veterans, next year it is children, we never looked at the entire population -- one here it is veterans, the next greatest children, we never looked at the entire population.

Finland has come up with solutions that has decreased homelessness.

They have stopped demonizing people and understood that everybody comes from the same source.

We are all people with the same blood flowing through our veins.

We cannot blame people or force them to prove their need.

If we do that, we will always have homelessness in our country.

We all want healthy communities.

Well what healthy babies -- we all want healthy babies.

We are not doing the job to get there.

I love Kelly's idea.

Christ Hughes is my favorite poet and he has a poem called Harlem.

He asked the question of what happens to a dream deferred?

Nothing happens.

They need to be reawakened.

Providing music and creativity allows people to reconnect with those dreams.

I love that program.

That is more of we need to do too.

We need to connect to humanity.

We can change the trajectory of homelessness.

Jessell: If I may, to the people who are feeling uncomfortable when they see someone that is homeless, I would say, OK, you feel that level of discomfort, hold onto that, that is a fraction of what someone is feeling that is actually experiencing homelessness.

Imagine, put yourself in those shoes.

Getting to the point where you have to do that?

You have to Panhandle to just try to get a roof over your head.

Look at other societies.

No other wealthy society has this level of inequality.

That does not guarantee housing or guarantee health care.

A lack of health care is the leading cause of bankruptcy in this country.

We are living in the wealthiest society.

Other countries pay far less to create housing in the United States do.

They do not prioritize the profits of a handful of people.

We need to look at what our values are.

The media is to do a better job and talk less about the discomforts of seeing homelessness and humanize people in the experience and see what we can do about it.

Kelly: I would also like to add, I completely agree, I think Donald and Jessell make some OnPoint references about the systemic problems behind homelessness.

The demonization of those who are homeless.

In my more limited perspective, I have see also, there were issues that create homelessness that do not begin as economic issues.

Anecdotally, people who experience a traumatic, dramatic, emotional event.

That spirals into what becomes an economic circumstance.

For example, I met a woman who is featured in music kitchen's filled.

m. Between she and her wife she had lost seven family members in the span of five months.

They passed away.

Her wife was so distraught that she could not deal with it, she left her with a mortgage she could not afford.

There was a limited, a two person mortgage and she was left to take care of their household expenses alone.

It was not very long before she became homeless for not being able to manage all of that.

Another case from someone I met in Los Angeles, she was a pianist.

She lost all of her family in a fire.

All of her children, except for one, her children and she and another child survived.

She was unable to go into a building, not even a shoulder for several years -- shelter for several years because she was distraught.

I met her because she happened to go in for a meal.

They try to make her stay for safety, but she will not do that.

She hurt our concert, when we came back a year later, she came in once again to attend the concert.

She was -- she had to get her own place emotionally before she was ready.

She has another apartment again and she has been back in her home.

There are circumstances that are beyond the systemic economic ones which are so real and so much a fabric of this society.

I would add to the systemic aspect of it, that there is a projection of what homelessness looks like.

Through music kitchen, I worked to decouple that perspective.

That homelessness is focused on communities of color.

If there is one thing I have noticed in music kitchen, it is that there is no prerequisite for homelessness.

Is economic circumstances can befall anyone -- these economic circumstances can befall anyone, and emotional devastation can befall anyone.

Homelessness has many faces.

In my opinion, this will not be a solution to ending homelessness from occurring.

Human life is messy and sometimes very sad and tragic.

As a society, we have to provide a soft landing.

Recognize the right to shelter.

Rather than the commoditization of shelter in those instances.

I think it is an important thing to realize.

It is insidious.

It is economic and will beyond.

Jenna: I was going to ask, with all of you talking about the importance of the right to shelter out of you mentioned other cities and countries where they have addressed that.

What are the bigger push back you here in this country?

If everyone has a right to shelter, basic economics, most people their home as their biggest economic investment -- is their biggest economic investment.

Does not lower the value of what so many people have -- does that not lower the value of what so many people have put money and time into?

That is a fear many people have.

The value of my home is going to go down and I put everything into my home!

That is my biggest asset?

Donald: Let me address that point because of that is a good point that is incorrect.

We started to create permanent supportive housing around the country, there were studies that looked at the housing value in those communities.

You would be surprised at other people would be surprised that the housing value went up when new buildings were created in those communities.

People, that is some of us.

I do not know if people have read that, it talks about that fundamental issue that people do not vote for or prove or elected officials do not create resources because they think by creating resources for others they actually lose things themselves.

That is not true.

The truth is that if you raise the level of people who are at the bottom of the economic ladder, it also benefits.

State of the top-down method, the top up method is what really is more effective in this country.

I wanted to speak to the idea of -- it is so important that we tell stories like Kelly just told us.

People's vision of homelessness is different from the reality.

The project -- the trajectory people get their.

The levels and the encampments, it is a long story.

It is not an immediate story.

It does not happen right away.

I wanted to add that we are not saying that only people of color are experiencing homelessness.

Because of our system, people experience and homelessness are more likely to be -- there is an overrepresentation of people of color.

40% of the homeless population are black people.

The overrepresentation is the issue that we want to talk about.

Why is that?

It is because of systems that have created a wealth gap in this country.

The one issue I always bring up when people try to say it is because of this behavior or that behavior.

If we look at infant mortality in this country, if we look at how bad and how different the infant mortality is for black women -- Black women.

Black women with a college degree has a worse mortality rate than a woman with a high school degree.

It absolutely is a systemic issue and I am just saying that in most communities, in early communities, it is more than 70% in some places.

We do have this over representation of people of color and it goes back to the disadvantages and inequality in our criminal justice system or mental health system.

The reason is systemic, we do not have resources or mental health issues.

Kelly: and to clarify, it is the media's portrayal, not anything that has been said today.

The media has broadly used people of color, specifically African-Americans as the face of homelessness.

The definition of in the mak er's takers argument that people of color are the takers and are not the productive members of society.

It was mainly that I was taking issue with.

The systemic mechanism that work upon communities of color are very real and explained generationally as we know.

So much of the disparity and inequality that we experience today.

In 2023.

Jenna: We will have to leave it there, but this is an ongoing conversation we will have, especially here on MetroFocus.

Thank you to all three of my guests.

Thank you all so much for joining me tonight.

Donald: Thank you.

Kelly: thank you.

Jessell: Thank you, it was a pleasure.

Jenna: Absolutely.

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♪ >> MetroFocus is made possible by the Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation Bernard and Denise Schwartz Barbara Hope Zuckerberg Jody and John Arnhold Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation The Ambrose Monell Foundation Estate of Roland Karlen The JPB Foundation ♪