The Negative Right to Shelter

For over forty years, scholars and advocates have responded to the criminalization of homelessness by calling for a "right to shelter." As traditionally conceived, the right to shelter is a positive right an enforceable entitlement to have the government provide or fund a temporary shelter bed for every homeless individual. However, traditional right-To-shelter efforts have failed. Despite the continuing prominence of right-To-shelter rhetoric, only four U.S. jurisdictions have embraced such a right. Moreover, the shelter systems in these jurisdictions are troublingly inadequate, mired in administrative bureaucracy and cabined by strict eligibility limits. The right-To-shelter movement has even proven pernicious. Centering a positive right to shelter in the discourse surrounding homelessness has rendered the weaknesses in shelter offerings invisible, and courts increasingly reify temporary emergency shelters as a justification for criminalizing unsheltered homelessness.