WASHINGTON (KMOX) - St. Louis native and first-year Congresswoman Rep. Cori Bush says what drove her to introduce the "first federal resolution that affirms the civil and human rights of unhoused individuals and communities" was her first-hand experience.
She talked about her past in a column posted on Time.com titled "I Lived in My Car and Now I'm in Congress. We Need to Solve America's Housing Crisis." The piece also explains the resolution she introduced to Congress this week.
Bush says during one particularly cold night in St. Louis she was in her car, holding her children, a 6-month-old daughter and 1-year-old son, so that they would all stay warm.
"When I was living out of my car, I did not know where we were going to eat, use the bathroom, rest or enjoy a quiet moment," she writes in the piece. "I used McDonald’s bathrooms to mix baby formula and wash my body because I had no other options. I received food from food pantries, but I could not eat the items that had to be refrigerated or cooked. This never ending instability, combined with the constant fear of interacting with the police, losing custody of my children, having my car impounded — or even losing my life — left me stressed, traumatized and exhausted."
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Bush hopes here "Unhoused Bill of Rights" will formally recognize "the unhoused crisis in our country is a public health emergency." The resolution would "Permanently end the unhoused crisis by 2025."
Here's what the resolution would do:
• Permanently end the unhoused crisis by 2025 by drastically increasing the affordable housing stock, providing universal housing vouchers, and bolstering funding to federal housing programs, shelters, transitional and permanent housing programs, social services, and housing advocates.
• Calls on the Department of Health and Human Services to declare the unhoused crisis a public health emergency.
• Protect unhoused individuals from the violation of their fundamental civil and human rights to housing, health care, livable wages, education, employment opportunities, access to public facilities, and freedom from harassment by law enforcement, private businesses, property owners, and housed residents.
• Supports historic federal fundinglevels for state and local governments to provide 24-hour support for unhoused people, including: shelters, transitional housing programs, supportive services, public restrooms, hand-washing stations, showers, laundry facilities, and water fountains in coordination with grassroots and community-led organizations.
• Develop holistic, health-based, and non-carceral solutions to the unhoused crisis in coordination with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), community-led organizations, and unhoused advocates from a health-based approach that addresses both the unhoused and public health crises.
Read the full resolution, here.
Read the column on TIME.com, here.
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