The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty is presenting a webinar entitled Sweeps & COVID-19: Organizing and Legal Strategies to Stop the Sweeps of Homeless Encampments During and After the Pandemic on Wednesday, July 29, 2020 from 2:00 PM-3:30 PM Eastern.

Outdoor encampments have grown along with the nation's affordable housing gap, and because homelessness has a disparate racial impact on Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color, sweeps of encampments contribute to disparities in law enforcement and wealth building.

Governments across the country routinely evict people from their encampments despite the lack of available housing or even any stable and safe place for them to go.These evictions - or "sweeps" cause people to lose their access to private shelter and other personal property, including items necessary to protect life and health, such as medication and protective clothing. They also cause people to disperse to other outdoor locations or enter into congregate shelter facilities - both risk factors for the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

Indeed, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has advised that governments not conduct sweeps unless individual housing units are available to the people living there. But, despite this public health guidance, many governments have not stopped the sweeps.

This webinar will discuss organizing and legal strategies for stopping the sweeps during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. You will learn about a new national campaign to stop the sweeps, House Keys Not Sweeps, launched by the Western Regional Advocacy Project.

This webinar will feature:

• Paul Boden (he/him/his), Executive Director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project
• Tristia Bauman (she/her), Senior Attorney at the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
• Additional speakers to come