Seven Ways to Help Homeless People Sleep Safe

The National Coalition for the Homeless offers the following steps to help spread awareness about how to help our neighbors experiencing homelessness in the US to sleep safely and cope with the elements.

1. Lend a helping hand: Participate in clothing and blanket drives to make sure your homeless neighbors have the supplies they need to weather living outside. You can also raise money for organizations that do this work on a regular basis.
2. Ask for more shelters: No city in the US has enough shelter beds to serve their entire homeless population. Challenge your community to provide beds for every man, woman, and child in your community.
3. Fight Criminalization: Stand up and advocate for sensible alternative to ccriminalizing the activities that people experiencing homelessness have to do every day to survive, such as sleeping and sharing food in public spaces.
4. Protect Public Housing: Let your local government know that you value public housing as a resource for preventing and recovering from homelessness for both individuals and families. Make sure that all public properties are used to benefit ALL.
5. Demand More Vouchers: Contact your law makers at every level and tell them that you want your community to provide enough rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing vouchers for everyone who needs them.
6. Push for More Housing Dollars: Ask your elected representatives in the House and Senate to increase funding for HUD programs for the poor and the homeless, and for the National Housing Trust Fund. And, tell them you want the funds protected from misappropriation.
7. Stop Hate Crimes: One of the worst threats homeless sleepers face is violence from those in the housed community. Petition your city and state legislators to add protections for people experiencing homelessness to their existing hate crimes legislation.

For more information about how you can help people facing or experiencing homelessness in your community, please visit www.nationalhomeless.org.