RHLS, together with PULP, joins the National Homeless Law Center in condemning the vigilante murder of homeless New Yorker Jordan Neely and the failure on the part of the NYPD and public officials to hold his killer accountable. We see the killing of Jordan Neely and the subsequent public acquiescence in that killing as indicative of our society’s devaluation of Black lives and dehumanization of poor and marginalized people.
At RHLS, we believe that all people deserve housing that is healthy, safe, and affordable in a community of choice where they can thrive. We provide legal support for nonprofits who are working hard every day to make that vision a reality. This already difficult work takes place against a backdrop of increasing financialization of housing and concomitant increase in the cost of housing and utilities. Working families and individuals with disabilities find themselves in more and more precarious housing situations, struggling – and often failing – to keep a roof over their heads. As more and more Americans are rendered homeless, our society’s answer cannot be to devalue and demonize them.
Jordan Neely was obviously experiencing multiple crises on the day he was murdered. A witness said that Neely had been “screaming in an aggressive manner … he said he had no food, he had no drink, that he was tired….” Besides being homeless, hungry, thirsty, and tired, it is also likely that he was experiencing a mental health crisis. Homelessness can both result from mental illness (people who are mentally ill are sometimes ill-equipped to deal with housing precarity) and cause or exacerbate it (losing one’s home has been linked to the onset of depression and the aggravation of pre-existing mental illness). In either case, Jordan Neely’s stress and behavior in the minutes leading up to his murder were understandable. As uncomfortable as it surely must have been for the other riders in the subway car, what Jordan Neely needed that day was compassion and help, not to have the life choked out of him. On a larger level, what he needed was a home, nutritional help, and access to health care, not to have public officials condone his murder.
RHLS calls on our elected officials to end the criminalization and demonization of homeless people and to instead promote robust, long-term solutions to the crisis of housing financialization and unaffordability.