PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – John Joyce, an advocate for the homeless who helped author the "Homeless Bill of Rights" enacted in Rhode Island last year, has died. He was 50.
Jim Ryczek, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless, tells The Associated Press that Joyce died at home in Providence on Thursday after a battle with cancer.
Joyce was co-founder of the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project and was formerly homeless himself. He was one of the authors of a bill passed last year that prevents discrimination by governments, health care workers, employers and others from treating homeless people unfairly because of their housing status.
National homeless advocates called the law the first of its kind in the nation.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
