Since the US Supreme Court’s regressive Grants Pass ruling in June 2024, over 300 states and localities have enacted legislation criminalizing street homeless people. Threats to criminalization of homelessness, poverty, and the housing crisis at large have worsened in New York, a deeply unaffordable city with nearly 3 million rent burdened households.

Join us for an enriching conversation about key human rights interventions with the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing and a panel of housing rights activists, organizers, and policy experts.

Speaker:

Balakrishnan Rajagopal is the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing. He is Professor of Law and Development at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A lawyer by training, Rajagopal is an expert on many areas of human rights, including economic, social, and cultural rights, the UN system, and the human rights challenges posed by development activities.

Discussants:

Siya Hegde, is a human rights lawyer in New York City, where she currently works with the
National Homelessness Law Center on advancing the right to housing and decriminalizing
homelessness and poverty. She was previously a civil public defender at The Bronx Defenders,
where she engaged in client facing advocacy and litigation that centered on the civil
consequences of individuals’ contact with legal systems. Her expertise in eviction defense and
housing justice has grown in partnership with local grassroots coalitions, directly impacted
tenants, advocates, and defender organizations across the City. Her work and commentary have
been featured in various outlets, including the New York Daily News, Times Union, City Limits,
the New York Law Journal, the Georgetown Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, and the Indiana
Health Law Review. As part of a national task force of civil society advocates, she has engaged
with U.N. human rights mechanisms in Geneva around the criminalization of homelessness and
poverty and is also a Board Member of the relaunched U.S. Human Rights Network.

Christine Quinn, has served as President and CEO of Win since 2015. Under her leadership,
Win has nearly doubled its shelter capacity and tripled its supportive housing portfolio to meet
the growing needs of New York City’s homeless population. She played a key role in securing
$50 million for the Housing Access Voucher Program pilot in the state budget, expanded
vouchers for CityFHEPS recipients, and is working to increase mental health resources in
shelters. A lifelong advocate for women, children, and the LGBTQ+ community, Christine made
history as the first woman and the first openly gay Speaker of the New York City Council.
During her tenure, she championed affordable housing, healthcare, and civil rights, and led major
initiatives to combat hate crimes and sexual assault. Today, Christine remains a national voice on
homelessness, equity, and social justice.

Leah Goodridge, is a nationally renowned lawyer, keynote speaker, and writer with a focus on
housing policy. Goodridge was once highlighted in a sample sentence in the Merriam-Webster
dictionary under the word “litigator.” Spending twelve years as a tenants’ rights attorney,
Goodridge defended low-income New Yorkers in various Housing Court cases. Former New
York City mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Goodridge to the Rent Guidelines Board, where she
successfully advocated for citywide rent freezes for two million rent-stabilized tenants.
Goodridge has authored 10 op-eds in major publications, including the New York Times, Time
Magazine, USA Today and Teen Vogue.

Fitzroy Christian, is a member of the leadership team at CASA (Community Action for Safe
Apartments), a membership-driven tenant and community organizing initiative of New
Settlement Apartments, both based in the southwest Bronx. He is also a social justice advocate
and activist who over the past several years has been involved in several CASA-led and New
York State- and City-wide campaigns focused on preserving and expanding truly affordable
housing for low-income and extremely low income residents of the Bronx and New York City.
He has participated in international social justice conferences and forums including the World
Social Forum 2016 in Montreal, and symposiums in Dallas and Philadelphia, and has testified
before the United Nations Working Group of Experts on Peoples of African Descent on the status
of African descendants here in the United States.

Moderator:

Jessica Katz, is the strategic policy advisor at Cannon Heyman & Weiss LLP and principal of
Silver Bullet Consulting. She is the former chief housing officer of New York City and was
previously the executive director of the Citizens Housing & Planning Council.

Presented by the Parsons Housing Justice Lab and the MS Design and Urban Ecologies Program at Parsons School of Design, in collaboration with NY-Human Right to Housing Coalition. Co-sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Homeless Law Center and Women in Need.