Ending Homelessness is Personal for John Do, ACLU NorCal Senior Attorney

For John Do, who grew up poor in subsidized public housing, ending homelessness is personal. 

“I’ve always seen homelessness as a direct result of decades of poor policymaking and a lack of investment in affordable housing,” said Do, a senior attorney with the Racial and Economic Justice Program. “Without it, I know with one hundred percent certainty that my family would have been homeless.” 

The ACLU of Northern California has a long history of fighting for the rights of poor people. In 1941, we argued Edwards v. California, which struck down a state law that made it a crime to knowingly bring an indigent person into California. In 1993, we sued San Francisco for citing and arresting people for sleeping in parks and on public property. The class action lawsuit argued that the San Francisco Police Department’s “Matrix” enforcement program criminalized homelessness and poverty. Despite abundant evidence that San Francisco continued to harass and arrest unhoused people, in 1996 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the case because the city claimed SFPD had ended the program. In response to the court’s ruling, lead plaintiff Bobby Joyce remarked, “Matrix is over in name only.” 

He would be proven right. 

Nearly three decades later, ACLU NorCal and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area filed Coalition on Homelessness v. City of San Francisco, a lawsuit challenging the city’s costly and ineffective practice of destroying unhoused individuals’ belongings, and citing, arresting, and moving them without offering shelter. The federal court has determined that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail in showing that San Francisco has a record of doing both. The case is scheduled to go to trial in May 2025.

Do, who joined ACLU NorCal in 2021 after nearly a decade at the U.S. Department of Justice, is lead counsel for the Coalition case. Being raised in an immigrant family that relied on food stamps and other government benefits shaped his world view and career path. Guided by faith, a Jesuit education steeped in the principles of social justice and service, and the values his parents instilled, Do extends empathy and compassion to those who are less fortunate. 

As someone whose family existed on the fringes of the community, Do is frustrated that society scapegoats and dehumanizes unhoused people— who are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and individuals with disabilities— instead of holding lawmakers accountable for their policy failures.  

“We should want a government that does not criminalize poverty and instead ensures that people don’t have to live on the street,” he said. “We should not want police officers being social workers, we should not want our jails and prisons to function as our mental health care system. What we want is a society that takes care of its most vulnerable and provides access to safe and affordable housing.” 

Do’s parents immigrated to the United States from Vietnam after the war. His mother, who fled the country on a crowded fishing boat with her two eldest sons, settled in a burgeoning Vietnamese refugee community in San Jose where a large extended family offered support. Do’s father, who had served in the South Vietnamese army, reunited with them about five years later following a stint in a “reeducation camp.” 

While his father worked temporary jobs on assembly lines and in construction, Do’s mother, who is disabled and spoke limited English, didn’t always have stable employment. Yet, she was incredibly resourceful and determined to give her children every opportunity to thrive in her adopted country. A devout Catholic, she convinced the parish to give her four sons a free elementary and secondary education. 

Despite mild dyslexia, Do excelled in school and was accepted at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. His parents wanted him to become a doctor, but he had other ideas. Motivated by a desire to help others, Do co-founded Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere (HOPE), a student organization that partnered with unhoused people and the local religious community to work on ending homelessness. The group, which also advocated for inclusive zoning for affordable housing, was Do’s introduction to homelessness policy. 

“Housing has always been important to me because I think it dictates so much of one’s life. Your zip code speaks to what school access you have, what job prospects you have, your health, how long you will live and who you interact with on a day-to-day basis,” said Do, who as a child slept in the living room of his family’s cramped apartment. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in public policy and religion, Do joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and returned to the Bay Area for a yearlong placement with the Bar Association of San Francisco's Homeless Advocacy Project where he helped clients appeal denials of Social Security and disability benefits and negotiated settlement agreements for tenants fighting eviction.

When the time came to choose a profession, Do considered architecture, but he was only interested in building suspension bridges, baseball parks, and affordable housing, and there weren’t any firms with that niche specialization. At Brown, he had developed a reputation as a contrarian who enjoyed playing devil’s advocate during late night debates. Naturally, friends suggested he become an attorney. 

“My mom always says, ‘an honest lawyer is a poor lawyer;’ so my parents weren’t necessarily a fan of me going into the law because we grew up poor and they didn’t want me to be poor,” said Do, who endured years of childhood teasing about his name (his mother still blames the nurse who didn’t warn her about the implications of the biblical name she had chosen for her youngest son). Although he gave himself the middle name ‘Thomas’ as a teen and went by J.T. for a while, now he appreciates a good ‘John Doe’ joke he hasn’t heard before.  

He earned a full ride to Boston College Law School where he was an editor of the Law Review and a Public Service Scholar. He interned at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and in the housing and civil enforcement section of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice. In 2012, he joined DOJ’s Environmental and Natural Resources Division where he learned to litigate. By 2020, he was eager to resume work in the civil rights and housing discrimination field and was attracted to ACLU NorCal’s intersectional approach to racial and economic justice, which resonated with his lived experience. In addition to the San Francisco homelessness lawsuit, Do has litigated cases seeking to eliminate predatory court fees and end systemic discrimination against Asian Americans in Siskiyou County. 

In April, Do traveled to Washington, D.C. to hear oral arguments in Grants Pass v. Johnson, the landmark homelessness case. The night before, he joined the queue outside the U.S. Supreme Court with a sleeping bag, snacks, and a thermos of hot water for coffee, tea, and hot chocolate to ward off the spring chill. He shared his bounty with others in line, and the irony that they were essentially camping out—which the ordinance at the heart of the case prohibited—was not lost on anyone. 

He wore a jacket and tie, a more casual outfit than the other attorneys seated in the gallery. 

“I had to stay here overnight to hear the justices debate the possibility of criminalizing homelessness,” he said. “I’m not going to wear a suit.” 

Although the Supreme Court overturned Grants Pass and opened the door for cities to cite and arrest people simply for being homeless, our lawsuit against San Francisco will continue. The city must follow its policies and an ordinance requiring San Francisco to offer shelter before clearing encampments. And a federal injunction still prohibits the city from seizing and destroying unhoused people’s belongings in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

As our case against the city proceeds in court, homelessness will be a major issue in the San Francisco mayoral race. ACLU NorCal encourages our members who live in the city to ask candidates what they will do to increase affordable housing and temporary shelter. 
 

Lisa P. White is a communications strategist at the ACLU of Northern California.