Crises typically involve a sense of suddenness. Many are natural in their origin. A tornado fits both. The mass homelessness that began in New York City (and nationwide) in the late 1970s was neither. Yet lawyers advocating for the homeless approached the problem in much the same way as their peers working on more traditionally defined crises. In New York it began with litigation—establishing the right to shelter for homeless men, then women, then families. From there, it moved on to subpopulations such as mentally ill individuals, as housing is not a right recognized by any court. Throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s, litigatory and nonlitigatory efforts by the Coalition for the Homeless had many important victories, unintended consequences—both good and bad—and provided many valuable lessons for legal practitioners, such as defining the crisis, forming partnerships, and recognizing the limits of litigation.
Tuberculosis and HIV among mentally ill men in a New York City shelter.