CUNY Law professor highlights homelessness in collaborative news site

CUNY Law Professor Chaumtoli Huq’s Law at the Margins website features stories by people experiencing homelessness. Photo courtesy of Law at the Margins.

By David Brand

For nearly seven years, CUNY School of Law Professor Chaumtoli Huq has used her news organization, Law at the Margins, to highlight injustices in New York City and locations around the world. 

In recent months, Huq and Law at the Margins co-creator Eric Ortiz have turned their attention to the homelessness crisis affecting communities across the country. Their project, known as a a Community Based News Room, features a series called “Right to a Home,” which uplifts the voices of people experiencing homelessness.

“Our unique collaborative journalism model helps people with lived experiences of injustice report on solutions,” Huq said. “We don’t tell their stories, but provide the structure and support so that they can report on the issues that impact them directly.”

Law at the Margins introduced the series in mid-December 2019, starting with a dispatch from Nashville, followed by an analysis of health care for people experiencing homelessness and a report from Oakland.

Law at the Margins removes filters and allows individuals to share their own stories, Huq told the Eagle in 2018. The site enables people who are affected by immigration enforcement, domestic violence, incarceration and other issues to share their own experiences.

“I wanted to focus on stories of people who aren’t covered, even within mainstream public interest work,” Huq said. “The goal is to uplift the stories of people who aren’t quote-unquote experts. They are people who experience the law and as a result of their experience develop an expertise.”

Many Law at the Margins contributors have experienced the “direct impact of a law or policy on their lives,” she continued.

The mother of an incarcerated son has written about her experience, for example. So has a former death row inmate who discussed the death penalty.

“New voices lead to new perspectives on issues. New perspectives on issues lead to changes in society,” Huq said. “That’s the power of narrative. You can tell a story that can impact the ability to obtain rights and justice.”