As homelessness rises across the United States and cities grapple with visible encampments and spiraling housing costs, legal advocate Maria Foscarinis offers a powerful new perspective in her forthcoming book, Housing for All: The Fight to End Homelessness in America (Prometheus Books, June 2025).
In an interview on Everyday Injustice, Foscarinis reflected on her decades-long career, the structural failures behind America’s homelessness crisis, and what it will take to truly solve it.
A former Wall Street attorney, Foscarinis left corporate law in the early 1980s to fight for the rights of homeless individuals. She went on to found the National Homelessness Law Center in 1985 and was a leading force behind the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act—the only major federal homelessness legislation to date. For over 30 years, she has been one of the nation’s foremost voices pushing to reframe housing not as a commodity, but as a fundamental human right.
“Housing is a human right. In fact, it is a human right according to international human rights law and norms.” – Maria Foscarinis
“There was a big first wave of homelessness in the 1980s that coincided and really was triggered by the Reagan administration and all the cuts to the social safety net,” Foscarinis said. “That first wave has continued. It didn’t end, but it’s been added to.”
She explained how the 2008 foreclosure crisis brought another surge, displacing many families for the first time, and how federal support has never caught up with the need. “Some housing has been restored, but not nearly enough to make up the gap,” she added.
At the heart of her argument is a simple but urgent premise: “Housing is a human right. In fact, it is a human right according to international human rights law and norms,” Foscarinis said.
She pointed out that the U.S. helped shape those norms after World War II, but domestically, housing policy has been driven by market logic instead of human need.
“If you have money and can afford the growing cost of housing, you’re okay. If you don’t, then you’re not—and there’s nothing you can do about that,” she said.
Foscarinis is sharply critical of how the housing market has evolved in recent decades. “Housing is treated as a commodity. It’s something to buy, to trade on the stock market, something to profit from,” she said. She warns that the rise of private equity and investor-driven real estate has only worsened inequality, pushing low-income people out of neighborhoods and into homelessness. “There will be losers—and there are now a lot of losers.”
While homelessness is often portrayed as a fringe issue, Foscarinis insists it’s only the visible tip of a much deeper housing crisis. “A lot of people are struggling to afford housing,” she said. “There’s a growing number of people who are spending over 50% of their income simply for housing.”
Despite existing federal programs, she explained, support is scarce and inaccessible for most. “Only one in four people who are poor enough to qualify actually receives help under these federal programs,” she said. And even those who manage to obtain housing vouchers may be turned away by landlords or placed on waitlists years long. “There used to be something called public housing in this country. This has been massively defunded, allowed to deteriorate, and no new units are even allowed to be built since the late 1990s.”
Foscarinis noted that while some people experiencing homelessness have additional challenges—mental health conditions or substance use disorders—these are not the root causes.
“It’s fundamentally a housing issue,” she said. “Without housing, it’s almost impossible to address these issues.”
She praised the Housing First model, which prioritizes permanent housing and then offers support services: “You need housing. Then you consider what else you might need.”
She also warned against a growing trend that criminalizes homelessness. “Simply making it a crime for people to live in public is not going to do anything,” she said. “It’s expensive, it costs more to arrest and pursue people through the criminal justice system than it does to house them.”
She described recent legislative developments—including the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 Grants Pass decision—as “a terrible disappointment.” Since that ruling, she noted, more than 150 new ordinances targeting homeless encampments have been enacted across the country.
“No one is advocating for people to be living in public,” she said. “That’s why the campaign that my organization started is called Housing Not Handcuffs. It’s not just about fighting criminalization. That has to happen—but that’s not enough. You also have to fight for something. And that something is housing.”
“Housing is not a commodity. It’s a human right.” – Maria Foscarinis
In her book, Foscarinis tracks the political and policy decisions that have sustained homelessness for decades. “It’s often said that homelessness is a choice,” she said. “And the book really argues that homelessness is a choice—but it’s a choice made by policymakers.”
She also tells the stories of people who’ve lived through homelessness, including one that remains etched in her memory: Danny, a man from Denver who lost both legs and toes to frostbite while living unhoused in the winter. After being denied shelter due to work-related curfew conflicts, Danny ended up living under a tarp in subzero temperatures. When he eventually sought emergency care, he was sent home with only pain pills.
“He wanted it to be filmed,” she recalled. “He talks in the clip about how housing is the solution. And just… it was enraging that this is allowed to happen in the United States of America.”
Foscarinis remains both realistic and determined.
“I still have hope,” she said. “It’s just going to take a longer time and a lot more fighting to overcome some of the terribly destructive policies coming out of the current administration.”
Asked how the public can help, her answer was clear: “Use your voice. That is the most important thing anyone can do—be an advocate. Call your representatives. Say housing is a human right. Say you want funding for housing, not criminalization.”
In Housing for All, Foscarinis offers not only a policy critique, but a call to conscience. It is a book rooted in law, history, and lived experience—and one that insists homelessness is not inevitable, but a crisis we can end if we choose to.
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Denver Grants Pass decision Homelessness Housing First model Maria Foscarinis McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act National Homelessness Law Center Prometheus Books Wall Street