Direct Action April 22nd 2025! Housing is a Human Right – Not a Crime
Housing is a Human Right – Not a Crime
Decriminalizing Homelessness
NEOCH forcefully condemns the Trump administration’s planned mass eviction of nearly 200 people living in Deschutes National Forest in Oregon. Let’s call this what it is: government-sanctioned violence against unhoused people. Threatening people with jail time and $5,000.00 fines for simply existing without shelter is not just cruel, it is a moral and policy failure of the highest order. This is not about safety, public health, or housing; it is about control, cruelty, and profit.
This will be the largest forced removal of homeless individuals in recent U.S. history. And like every sweep before it – in DC, NYC, in Columbus, Ohio – it will not house a single person. It will not solve homelessness. It will scatter lives, destroy communities, and drive people deeper into trauma.
These actions are not about solutions, they are about optics, punishment, and power. Meanwhile, billion-dollar interests are handed public land for logging while people who once lived nearby are criminalized for sleeping under trees.
But there is another path, and Cleveland is proving it.
In our city, local government didn’t turn away from unsheltered homelessness - it leaned in. Cleveland and Cuyahoga County leaders partnered with advocates, service providers, and directly impacted people to strategically address unsheltered homelessness. This isn’t a theoretical model – it’s funded, coordinated action. The City of Cleveland committed direct dollars to housing-focused outreach, low-barrier warming spaces, and encampment response rooted in housing placement rather than punishment.
And it is working.
We have seen more people placed into stable housing. We have seen real reductions in street homelessness. We have prevented winter deaths and built stronger systems of care. These outcomes didn’t come from sweeps or arrests, they came from choosing compassion, strategy, and investment over criminalization.
Criminalizing homelessness doesn’t reduce homelessness, it only makes it more brutal. It wastes taxpayer dollars, clogs our legal systems, and pushes people further from the services that could help them. And worst of all, it tells people who’ve already lost everything that their mere existence is a crime.
On April 22nd, NEOCH will join partners across the country for Nationwide Day of Action to demand housing, healthcare, and dignity – not handcuffs. We will not be silent as our neighbors are pushed to the margins. We will not back down while bad policies take root. We are building a future where everyone has a place to call home, and we know it is possible, because we are witnessing the progress right here in Cleveland.
Housing is a human right. Survival is not a crime. And we will not stop fighting until every person has what they need to thrive.
Join NEOCH on April 22nd.
