Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Years Late And A Dollar Short

This has been the policy for years now and it seems like the news media is just waking up to the fact that homeless shelters cannot discriminate against us.
Transgender rules for homeless shelters spark firestorm
The Hill
By Tim Devaney
August 16, 2016

Homeless shelters have become the latest battleground in the national debate over transgender rights.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is expected in September to finalize regulations that would allow people to stay in homeless shelters based on the gender they identify with.

The proposal has set off a firestorm, pitting LGBT groups against religious organizations that operate many homeless shelters.
[…]
“If you’re a transgender woman and you walk into a homeless shelter and they treat you like a man, it’s traumatizing,” he [David Stacy from the Human Rights Campaign.] added. “These people are already vulnerable, they’re homeless, they don’t have a job. To face discrimination the entire time they’re there is a real problem.”

Religious organizations see things differently.

Tim Wildmon, president of the conservative American Family Association, lamented having to “make room for people who are sexually confused at the expense of everyone else.”
This policy has been in place for years, it is nothing new, HUD published the Equal Access to Housing in HUD Programs Regardless of Sexual Orientation or Gender Identity final rule (Equal Access Rule) (77 FR 5662) on February 3, 2012. If they find the shelter in non-compliance they will pull their funding because when the shelter received HUD funding they agreed to obey the policy.

We have been giving training for homeless shelter staff and 211 operators for over a year now, we have had some push-back from some of the staff but most are in compliance with state and federal laws now.

The article goes on to say,
The Fair Housing Act prohibits homeowners from refusing to sell or rent to people because of their race, religion or gender, but HUD is looking to extend similar protections to homeless shelters that provide short-term housing.

Congress has not passed discrimination protections for transgender people at homeless shelters, so the rules would only apply to those shelters that receive financial assistance from the federal government.
Um… no. The courts have ruled that gender identity is covered under existing laws; HUD has only changed their policies to follow the courts.



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