Homelessness:
Real Solutions, Not Just Temporary Ones
How can we lower homelessness is Santa Barbara County? Homelessness has been a tremendous problem across the United States, and although there is no way we can end it, we can lower it with a lot of work. Not all people are homeless because of drugs or alcohol, and they deserve a chance at getting their lives back together. My idea to fix this is to build affordable housing units that focus on sustainable living. Affordable housing, that uses bioengineering, will save the government a great deal of money and will give the homeless better opportunities to get higher paying jobs. I believe we can lower homelessness with affordable housing.
Homelessness in a major problem in the United States, and it has been for a long time. On any given day homeless numbers rise and fall due to economic conditions, imprisonment, death, and possibly successfully pulling oneself up out of the situation. There are many factors that can lead to homelessness. For example: job loss, addiction, domestic abuse, and mental illness are a few. Once a person is in the grip of homelessness it is hard to rise out of it. Survival becomes the number one concern. They face challenges every day that many people never have to face. For some, not all, getting money for food, drugs, or alcohol is their most basic goal. A person is at such a low point in their life that they feel worthless, suffer from low self-esteem and hopelessness. For many, addiction does not begin until after they find themselves homeless.
The prevalence of homelessness has been a major problem for every country. It is heartbreaking to learn that no countries have been able to eradicate homelessness. Not only does homelessness have a negative effect on the economic growth of a country, but also significant negative psychological effects on a person’s life. The psychological effects of being homeless may not be obvious, but are compelling nonetheless. Homelessness may affect the psychological growth of a child in different ways; for example, profound violence and anxiety are most prevalent in homeless families. CITE THIS There are many effects that a homeless person may suffer from. Other than the obvious change in the person’s life style, such as the type and quality of clothing they wear or their mode of transportation, homeless people are subject to various health effects as well. In recent studies it has been found that one out of every three homeless people suffer from some sort of mental illness. The mental illness may have been the reason the person became homeless or they may have acquired the illness from living on the streets. Although many people have tried to help with this major problem, no one has successfully found a way to lower homelessness for good.
On any given night in the United States, half a million people are homeless. Some of them sleep in shelters, others on the streets; roughly one-quarter are children. The government has tried to tackle the problem of homelessness on nearly every level, but complete solutions are very hard to find, despite the billions of dollars spent over time. The federal government had set a goal of ending homelessness for veterans by 2015, chronic homelessness by 2017, and homelessness for families with children by 2020.(Semuels, Alana.) But reaching these goals appears to be much farther off. Atlanta thought it had a great idea to end homelessness. Instead of its citizens giving their change to people on the street, the idea was to set up parking meter-like machines for people’s donations. Then, the money collected from Atlanta’s citizens would be used to enlarge government programs for the homeless. After six months, the donation meters had only gathered $500, a sum that will not go too far especially in the over priced world of government programs. In fact, the machines themselves cost far more than that. Another attempt at lowering homelessness was by the Housing and Urban Development Program. The Housing and Urban Development Program is an agency that is designed to help Americans with their housing needs as well as build housing units. Many of the people who apply for affordable housing are put on a waiting list for five years, and that does not even mean they will get approved after waiting that long. In recent weeks, agencies have confirmed that about seventy five construction projects drew and spent $40 million in funds with little or nothing built. In its recent accounts to Congress, Housing and Urban Development reported they have completed at least seventeen construction projects that did not deliver all of the units that had been promised.(Cenziper, Debbie) An obvious solution to end homelessness might be to build more homeless shelters and housing. It is not that simple though. Many of the homeless do not stay in homeless shelter in fear of getting beat up or have their belongings stolen. Shelters are incredibly expensive to operate. Nationally, the average monthly cost of serving a family in an emergency shelter is $4,819. Providing them with a voucher for housing, on the other hand, is just $1,162. (“Semuels, Alana.”) Shelters might be good for emergencies, but does having a bed to sleep in mean that someone has a home?
My idea to lower homelessness would be to build affordable housing units that focus on sustainable living. Using solar energy, low drip faucets, and agricultural plants could save the government a lot of money that can be used for other necessities. The money saved could go to food as well as the rest of the housing rent and costs. By putting the homeless in long-term housing without asking them to get sober or hang onto a job first has resulted to be much more effective. After they are settled in a stable home, they would gain access to services such as drug and alcohol treatment, an assigned social worker, and job training. They do not have to take advantage of those services but many would probably choose to do so and it is always there as an option. The main negative effect of building and keeping housing units going is the cost. In Santa Barbara, as well as across most of the country, rent prices have been going up and more and more people are not able to afford it. The money they save from sustainable living would go to the costs of building more units as well as job training and paying for any drug or alcohol treatments. It can be hard for the government to come up with money for the homeless and that is a big part on why not much has been done to stop it. Another idea I had to save the government money was to cut some of the unnecessary beautification projects. Santa Barbara spends a great deal of money on projects that they may want but not need. If they cut some of the unnecessary projects, the money they saved could be used to build or rent housing for the homeless to stay in. If that can not be afforded, the money could be used to create more homeless shelters as a more temporary solution. Although there are downsides to all of these proposals, there are many things that have not been tried and can help the homeless greatly.
A bad as it is for the 44% of homeless people who have jobs and can not escape homelessness, climbing out of homelessness is virtually impossible for those without a job. ("Employment and Homelessness.")For those with limited skills or experience, opportunities for jobs that pay a living wage are very limited. Additionally, many members of the homeless population have to combat barriers such as limited transportation and reduced access to educational and training programs. I think a way we can lower homelessness is by solving it on a political, perceptual, and on a personal level. The political means improving and creating healthy public policies that meet the needs of all people, the perceptual means confronting public awareness around homelessness, and finally we need to solve it on a personal level by using tax-funded services such as food banks, health centers, homeless shelters, etc. and increase it until everyone’s basic necessities are being met. But again shelters are really only a temporary solution.
We will never be able to get rid of homelessness completely, but we can always try to lower it in anyway we can. Seemingly, every policy group that works on this issue has ideas about how to solve it for good. But what really works to help people get, and stay, off the streets? Is there any way to do this that would not be wildly expensive? I believe we need to solve homelessness on three levels, the political, perceptual, and the personal. By trying to fix it on those three levels, homelessness will decrease a tremendous amount. These people deserve real solutions, not just temporary ones.
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Carrier, Scott, Katie Rose Quandt, Josh Harkinson and Prashanth Kamalakanthan, Photographs by
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