In 2016, the Department of Housing and Urban Development enacted a rule titled “Equal Access in Accordance with an Individual's Gender Identity in Community Planning and Development Programs” (2016 Rule).  In part, this rule mandated that temporary and emergency shelters that receive federal funding must allow transgender and gender non-conforming individuals to seek and obtain services from shelters and programs in accordance with their gender identity.  The requires shelters to admit individuals based on self-identification as the only method of determining a person's sex.

In July 2020, HUD proposed a new rule designed to replace the 2016 Rule.  The proposed rule would allow shelters to develop their own policies regarding accommodating transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.  Essentially, this would enable shelters to turn away transgender and gender non-conforming people who are homeless.  If approved, this proposed rule would endanger the health, safety, and dignity of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.

Here are a few key points HUD needs to know about their proposed rule:

• Transgender individuals already experience multiple forms of oppression that put them at increased risk of homelessness. By getting rid of the existing rule that specifically prohibits shelters from discriminating based on gender identity, transgender individuals would be stripped of access to resources that everyone needs to stay alive.
• The very purpose of HUD is to maximize access to housing and “to ensure that every resident of the United States has access to decent shelter or assistance in avoiding homelessness” and “to improve housing opportunities for all residents of the United States, particularly members of disadvantaged minorities, on a nondiscriminatory basis.” Instead of staying true to this very mission, this proposal sends a message of cruelty and plain discrimination against transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary, and intersex individuals.
• Due to the vague wording of this new proposed rule, cisgender men and women whom shelter staff determine (based on their own criteria and stereotypes) to be insufficiently “male” or “female” could be turned away. We’ve already seen examples of this through gender bathroom policing.
• Due to a cycle of discrimination and poverty, transgender people are more likely than cisgender individuals to experience homelessness, and even more likely to be unsheltered in turn. 62% of houseless transgender adults are unsheltered and 78% of houseless gender non-conforming adults are unsheltered.

Transgender individuals are already disproportionately at risk for homelessness and are more likely to be unsheltered than cisgender adults.  In a time of an unprecedented global pandemic and unemployment crisis, HUD should be a stalwart of its mission and ensure housing for all.  The proposed rule flies in the face of the agency’s mission and rather than protecting rights, it encourages anti-trans discrimination in homeless shelters. This new proposed rule is cruel, and the ACLU of Nebraska opposes its adoption.  Bottom line, safe and stable housing is a human right.

LINCOLN, Neb. - A new report shows prison officials have made modest progress in reducing their overreliance on solitary confinement, due to legislative reforms over the past few years. However, the Department of Corrections must do more to reduce their reliance on solitary confinement and instead focus their efforts on alternatives that lead to rehabilitation outcomes.

Among the key findings of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services report:

• 1,793 individuals were held in solitary confinement for at least a day during the 2020 fiscal year. On average, 292 people were held in solitary confinement daily.
• The average length of time spent in solitary confinement was 34.28 days, with some Nebraskans being held for over 1,000 days. This violates the human rights best practices known as “the Mandela Rules” which establishes that solitary confinement should never last beyond 15 straight days.
• The daily average is a decrease of almost 80 people from 2019. This reduction is due to a new law that bans the use of solitary confinement for most minors and other vulnerable people, such as people who are pregnant or those with a serious mental illness.
• Despite these clear bans, the report shows that people with serious mental illness are still held in solitary confinement. In the 2020 fiscal year, ⅓ of all people held in solitary confinement had a serious mental illness, such as Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder.
• There is also a continued trend of racial disparities in solitary confinement with both Black and Hispanic men overrepresented in the solitary confinement population compared to the whole general prison population.

While there has been some progress, partly due to the ACLU of Nebraska’s multiyear advocacy campaigns to help legislative efforts to reduce solitary confinement, this isn’t enough. NDCS must do more to increase the use of rehabilitation alternatives.

ACLU of Nebraska Executive Director Danielle Conrad said prison officials must follow the law and make better choices now to ensure successful reentry down the road.

“State law is not a suggestion,” Conrad said. “It is unequivocal that long-term isolation exacerbates mental illness and does nothing to prepare people to successfully transition back to our communities when they are released. While we welcome any reduction in use of solitary confinement, prison officials can and must do more to reduce its use and end the human rights abuses which include placing Nebraskans who are mentally ill in solitary. The time is now for the Department of Corrections to immediately adopt policies and practices to replace this inhumane practice with fair and humane treatment to ensure basic dignity and advance our shared public safety goals.”