Firstly I want to thank everyone for over 500 signatures. Your support for this petition means so much to me. Thank you.

Second, I'm writing this update because my heart is burdened. I am grieving. I read this article today (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-24/supreme-court-case-on-criminalizing-homelessness-has-high-stakes and I don't have words to fully articulate everything I felt while reading it, or all the work that needs to be done in light of it.

This article reframes and emphasizes how important this landmark legislation is. Kentucky already passed their measure to criminalize homelessness. We cannot allow the Supreme Court to pass another measure on a federal level -- it would be extremely dangerous for all unhoused people in the United States.

Reading it, my soul wrenched inside of me. I became tearful, thinking about not only my experience and my family's experience of being homeless, but about all those who are currently homeless or will become homeless, that would be effected by this legislation should it pass.

I was thinking about how terrible it feels to be misunderstood. I was thinking, and re-feeling, all over again, the sensation that when you are homeless, people do not want you to exist.

What Cicero Institute, the State of Kentucky, and the plaintiffs of Grants Pass v. Gloria et al. are actually saying is : we don't want you to live.

And that is hard. That is a hard pill to swallow.

Homeless lives are valuable and important. They matter. Being homeless doesn't suddenly make you un-human.

This is where the rubber meets the road. It is a crucial moment in our nation's history and future, and I want us to be on the right side of it.

Please share this petition far and wide. If your state or county is a plaintiff on the petition, contact your representatives. (I posted the full petition, including all parties involved, in a previous update.) Join a protest if you're able. Let them know that HOMELESSNESS IS NOT A CRIME! And that we will not stand for anyone feeling like their life doesn't matter.

Thank you,

Jeryn