National Homelessness Law Center

Founding and History

The National Homelessness Law Center was formed in 1989 to advocate on behalf of homeless people under the 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. The group was founded originally as the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty by lawyer Maria Foscarinis. Foscarninis had played a major role in advocating for the passage of the Homeless Assistance Act and viewed the center as a means to ensure the federal government implemented the act. As a result, the center has sued the government several times in court. ¹

The group no longer directly provides legal services to clients but is instead focused on policy activism and implementation regarding homelessness. ¹

Financials

In 2023, the National Homelessness Law Center reported $2,161,218 in revenue, of which $2,153,643 came from contributions and grants and $2,146 from investment income. It reported $2,090,442 in expenses, of which $215,015 was paid out in grants and $1,476,946 was spent on salaries and compensation. It ended the year with net revenue of $70,776 and $1,002,434 in net assets. ³

The NHLC received $168,324 in government grants in 2023, which made up roughly 8 percent of that year’s budget. ³

Advocacy

The National Homelessness Law Center advocates for left-of-center policy. Notably, the group considers housing to be a human right, advocates stricter rules on evicting tenants, and seeks to force the federal government to hand over certain unused federal property free of charge to state and local governments and nonprofits that deal with homelessness. It identifies as “inclusive, diverse, and anti-racist” and states that it seeks to dismantle oppression both externally and internally. ^{2  1}

On June 24, 2025, the National Homelessness Law Center released a statement in response to President Donald Trump’s Executive Order signed the same day changing city and state ordinances regarding homelessness such as removal of encampments as well as providing treatment. The group’s statement read that it “strongly condemns today’s executive order, which deprives people of their basic rights and makes it harder to solve homelessness. This Executive Order is rooted in outdated, racist myths about homelessness and will undoubtedly make homelessness worse.” ⁴ The statement also read “Trump continues to focus on deeply unpopular policies like handcuffs and jail, which hurt Black and Brown people most…[t]o build truly safe, healthy, and just communities, we need housing and healthcare, not handcuffs and budget cuts. ⁴

Projects and Initiatives

The National Homelessness Law Center no longer directly represents clients in lawsuits. As of 2025, it had become involved in policy advocacy around homelessness, claiming that policy solutions are needed to solve homelessness. Some specific issues include working to prevent homelessness for abuse victims, making it more difficult to evict tenants if they may become homeless, and working to force the government to hand over unused properties to groups that will use them to house homeless people. ²

NHLC also fights against what it considers to be the “criminalization” of homelessness, arguing that laws prohibiting sleeping in public places or loitering are more expensive than the provision of government housing for the homeless and violate constitutional rights. It also argues that voter ID laws must be abolished, or their restrictions greatly loosened, to accommodate homeless people who do not possess a government ID. ²

Leadership

As of 2025, Antonia Fasanelli was the executive director of the National Homeless Law Center, a position she has held since 2021. Fasanelli previously worked as the executive director of the Homeless Persons Representation Project, which is based in Maryland. She is also involved in various “social justice” roles, especially with the American Bar Association, where she as of 2025 was the co-chair of the subcommittee for economic justice under the civil rights and social justice section. ⁵

Maria Foscarinis is the founder and longtime former director of the National Homeless Law Center. In the early 1980s, Foscarinis was working at a large law firm but quit her job to advocate for homeless issues, with this activism culminating in the passage of the 1987 McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Foscarinis then went on to found the National Homeless Law Center, originally called the “National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty,” to use enforce the act through lawsuits and the threat of lawsuits. She remained as its executive director until 2021. ⁶