The RISE UP Campaign

SUMMARY

The RISE UP (Rights, Inclusion, Safety, and Equality for Unhoused Persons) Campaign, is a legislative effort grounded in the leadership of individuals with lived experience of homelessness. This bill package seeks to enshrine legal protections for people experiencing homelessness, mandate data collection to ensure monitoring and accountability, and combat the stigma and systemic discrimination that perpetuate homelessness. By doing so, the RISE UP campaign establishes mechanisms that hold public systems accountable for how unhoused individuals are unjustly treated, reducing violence and discrimination while promoting the safety and dignity of unhoused individuals.

Introduced by Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal and Senator Luis Sepúlveda, the two-part bill package includes:

  • The Homeless Protection Act (HPA) – A.1565/S.5816: The HPA increases protections for people targeted based on their perceived housing status by designating such offenses as hate crimes. It also creates the first ever accountability mechanism to report and document attacks against New Yorkers experiencing homelessness.

  • The Homelessness Non-Discrimination Act (HONDA) – A.8913/S.8444: The HONDA prohibits discrimination based on housing status in employment, education, housing, public accommodations, volunteer opportunities, and credit and financial services, ensuring equal access to the essential services many take for granted.

CONTEXT

People experiencing homelessness in New York State face pervasive discrimination, violence, and exclusion in nearly every aspect of daily life. They are routinely denied employment, turned away from services, harassed in public spaces, excluded from housing opportunities, and subjected to unprovoked acts of violence. In a recent study in New York City, 81% of unhoused individuals reported experiencing at least one instance of homelessness related discrimination within a year.

Stigma and discrimination manifest in extreme forms, including violence against people experiencing homelessness. Research consistently shows that unhoused individuals are far more likely to be victims of a violent crime than the general population. Between 1999 and 2022 at least 76 incidents have been recorded in New York that could be classified as hate crimes against people experiencing homelessness, an alarming figure that is widely understood to be a severe undercount. Nationally, unhoused individuals are up to 82% more likely to be violently attacked due to their housing status.

These patterns disproportionately affect Black, Latine, LGBTQIA+, and formerly incarcerated individuals, reflecting long-standing structural inequities rooted in racism, discrimination, and exclusionary public policies. Without recognition as a protected class, people experiencing homelessness have no formal legal recourse when their rights are violated. While several other states are exploring similar protections, New York can lead the nation by formally recognizing housing status as a basis for legal protection and accountability, affirming that every New Yorker deserves safety, dignity, and equal rights, regardless of where they sleep at night.

DEFINITIONS

The HPA adds “homelessness” as a protected class, while the HONDA adds “housing status” as protected class. However, both terms share the same definition:

rEAD MORE: POLICY REPORTS

PROTECTING UNHOUSED NEW YORKERS: a lEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK TO ADDRESS DISCRIMINATION AND VIOLENCE (Urban Pathways, Care For the Homeless)

THE HOMELESS PROTECTION ACT: A STEP TOWARDS ENDING THE VICTIMIZATION OF HOMELESS NEW YORKERS (Urban Pathways, Care For the Homeless)

“the set of circumstances in which an individual or family lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, resides in a place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, such as a car, public sidewalk or street, hallway, bus or train station, lobby or similar place, resides in a residential program for victims of domestic violence or runaway and homeless youth, or resides in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living arrangements, including hotels and motels paid for by federal, state, or local government programs or by charitable organizations, congregate shelters, safe havens or transitional housing.”

Debunking Myths About THE HPA & THE HONDA

Myth: Homelessness is a changeable characteristic and therefore does not qualify as a protected class under hate crimes legislation.

Fact: Immutability is not a requirement for protected classes. Hate crime categories often include changeable characteristics such as nationality, religion, and disability. 

Myth: Expanding the list of protected classes would result in excessive or speculative litigation and lead to a major increase in incarceration.

Fact:  Research shows that comparable civil rights expansions function primarily as deterrents and accountability mechanisms rather than producing a surge of frivolous claims. Also, hate crimes for any protected class have a high burden of proof.

Myth: This legislation is unnecessary because people experiencing homelessness are rarely the victims of any crimes.

Fact: Stigma and discrimination against people experiencing homelessness frequently manifest in extreme and often violent forms. Research consistently shows that unhoused individuals are far more likely than the general population to experience violent crime.