Transformative Edge of Reform
Transformative Edge of Reform
Efforts at the transformative edge of reform are those that proactively protect and support individuals experiencing homelessness in meeting their basic needs safely and with dignity. These efforts fall short in meeting individuals’ broader needs or “solving” their experience of homelessness, as these efforts fail to recognize and respond to the systemic harm done to individuals and communities over the course of time.
Examples of Efforts on the Transformative Edge of Reform:
Protest encampments, created by community organizers and people experiencing unsheltered homelessness, have drawn public attention to the crisis of unsheltered homelessness and, in some cases, led to permanent results.
In Philadelphia, the Black and Brown Workers Collective and others came together in the wake of the George Floyd protests to form several large encampments including one that was highly visible on the city’s main thoroughfare, the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The organizers achieved a number of their demands before disbanding, including: transferring long-vacant city-owned public housing units to community land trusts in order for the properties to be immediately put to use and held as deeply affordable in perpetuity.Investments in Alternatives to Incarceration: Measure J, passed by voters in Los Angeles in 2020, amended L.A. County’s charter to permanently allocate at least 10% of existing locally-controlled revenues – growing close to $1B once fully phased in – to be directed to community investment and alternatives to incarceration. The ballot measure was developed by a broad coalition of Black and Brown led groups, including the Youth Justice Coalition.