The Nov. 3, 2011 New York Times has an obituary for Yvonne McCain. She was a homeless mother who, in 1983 sued the City of New York for failing to provide her small family with habitable emergency shelter. Here is one of the court decisions, the one that best summarizes a series of smaller parts in this very complex situation and which states definitively that families have to be provided with shelter. This decision was rendered in 1987, but the full case didn’t conlude until 2008. http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=3375906449026576910&q=mccain+koch&hl=en&as_sdt=2,39 Because Yvonne McCain had the courage to use the legal system, families in New York have been able to expect decent transitional housing for nearly a quarter of a century.
Homeless Law Blog 