Homelessness

Introduction

There is no particular federal definition what it means to be of homeless. However, Todd (2006) defines homelessness as the lack of a nighttime residence that is fixed and regular or a person that lives in a private or public place not fit to be a place of residence for temporary provision of accommodation. The data of the homelessness individuals is in most cases unavailable owing to their nomadic lifestyle. While estimates are hard to ascertain, Todd (2006) states that reports indicate that there are over a hundred million homeless people in the world. In some countries, the idea of homelessness has been entirely eliminated as compared to others especially in developing countries where the problem seems to be increasing rather than decreasing.

As this project question comes closer to a reality in many countries, the more often questions are; what are the sources of homelessness? What are the programs that have been put in place in order to combat this problem? Why is it that the problem in other countries seems to be escalating rather than decreasing? The world’s structural changes seem to have significantly increased the risk of homelessness over the last 50 years. Even in the developed countries, most people live in poverty without jobs or a stable income. These people face the risk of being denied social housing therefore exposing them to homelessness as explored in “Strategies for Preventing Homelessness.”

Thesis

It is cheaper for the government and taxpayers to prevent homelessness than fund the ongoing treatment of homeless individuals. Taxpayers pay millions in dollars yearly for street service and for rehabilitation of recuperating drug addicts who make up a large fraction of homeless persons. It would be cheaper for the government to provide housing for them that is inclusive of medical and counseling with the aim of monitoring them instead of continually treating them while still on the streets. The costs incurred in solving an already escalating problem can be prevented through provision of projects and other measures that will eliminate this problem. These funds could be diverted to other pressing issues like education and healthcare.

Background

Even in the current economic affluence, statistics indicate that the number of homeless individuals remained persistently high. Homelessness persist in the urban parts which have for the longest time remained economically depressed, high price of housing have rapidly risen and earnings for lower skilled workers remained constant.

Before 1980s, most homeless individuals were assisted by the local government. However, advocates received national attention in advocating for the rights of the homeless and this is when the federal government started playing a role in response to homelessness. Policies were enacted with the intention of providing shelter and other services that were crucial for their survival in the society (Todd, 2006).

Causes of Homelessness

Structural transformations have significantly increased the risk of housing segregation. In several European countries political and social mechanisms effectively protect majority of their citizens from becoming homeless as compared to the developing countries. Data indicate that the homelessness might be decreasing in the developed countries by the years, but commentators believe that this could be because people are not coming forward for help from official agencies as they know that the offers they will get are not close to what they would want (Todd, 2006). If this number of hidden homeless individuals is added to the official data, then it is challenging to say that the number of the homeless is increasing or decreasing.

It is vital to understand that social issues such as homelessness do not just emerge spontaneously and are in most cases coupled to political issues. With reference to the majority African countries where the political climate is unstable, homelessness becomes a key problem. This is because most people are jobless and therefore, face the risk of being homeless. The constant internal wrangles and fighting within a country due to ethnicity is also tied to political issues. When this happens, most innocent citizens are driven out of their homes making them refugees in their own countries. Others take refuge by migrating to the neighboring countries to live as homeless people.

Globalization is often mentioned as one of the reasons of increasing homelessness in the world. The increase in concentration of capital power in multinational and financial institutions aim mainly at maximization of profits make securing of employment at such institutions no longer reliable. The parallel increased reliance on markets and reduction in the social reduction duty of the state, through policies promoted globally have removed government jobs, released long-term residence of institutions for the vulnerable into society and reduced the delivery of social housing. While the rich have undoubtedly benefited, the increased prevalence of homelessness is all in its manifestations presents a less acceptable side of the coin minted through this years.

Solutions to Homelessness

In Comparison to other social issues, homelessness is unnecessary and can be easily addressed by policymakers. This issue costs taxpayers a lot of money in service and shelter costs that could otherwise be used for other crucial social problems like health care. Housing all the homeless individuals would cost not as much as the money paid by taxpayers, and numerous studies indicate that people living indoors visit the hospital or go to prison far less than those living on the street. In this essay, seven solutions to curb this problem are highlighted with each idea being effective in different areas.

One of the reasons why the homeless continue to live on the streets is because they were incapable of navigating through the procedures and programs that planned to help and were frustrated with the bureaucracies that have been put in place (Paulsen, 2007). Projects have been successful in enrolling homeless people in social service programs making them feel safe and respected. The trade fairs are opened so as to provide information to the homeless on how to acquire long term and short term housing within the city. They provide clothing, counseling, free phone calls, medical treatment, government identification cards, benefits information and more. This trade fairs also involve service providers, social workers and bureaucrats with an aim of building a healthy relationship that would make it easy for them to assist their clients find the way among providers.

I t is without a doubt that most people become homeless when they are incapable of paying their rent. It is cheaper to help such people pay their rent instead of rescuing them after they have already failed. Raising the minimum wages, reducing barriers of getting income assistance and increasing the welfare rates by up to 50% would spare taxpayers the huge amounts of money that they pay for street service in a year.

Young adults that are discharged from institutions such as foster care and jail lack employment skills posing a great risk to them of winding up in the streets. Expansion of programs that offer training for helpless youths are very important at that stage of their life. Providing basic employment skills by placing these young people in paid internship programs is a sure way of keeping the youth away fro the streets. This project not only acts as a way of offering a solution to homelessness, but also improves the security of the country in the long term.

Helping neighbors overcome the dilemma of homelessness is a great opportunity for faith communities. Many churches as well as other worship centers offer a range of services to the homeless (Paulsen, 2007). Leaders of these communities need to take a step in organizing forums that encourage the development of supporting housing in their areas. In addition, many churches and temples own land that they can develop with the aid of non-profit contractors to build small scale complexes.

The majorities of the homeless people are recovering addicts and those with mental illnesses and have been termed as the hard to treat cases. It is sensible to create a facility for these people since it is cheaper to house them than to treat them on the streets. Purchase of hostels by the government is a more permanent solution that would enable the monitoring of such individuals to avoid discrete drinking and drug use. The idea of housing people despite their problems is a major effort in the United States to end homelessness. Amalgamation of housing with medical and mental heath services will go a long way in moving chronic homeless people with long term addictions out of the streets.

A lot of those living in the streets are drug addicts and are the hardest to house individuals. Most of these addicts have tried to recover several times by checking into detoxification clinics often transferring from one program to another. What these individuals require is the time to completely recover in a supportive environment where they can re-establish their lives. Recovery houses are ideal for them because they not only offer medical staff treatment, but also regular participation and simple group counseling. A raise in welfare rates, together with small incentives for long-term addicts who stay in recovery and keep on to testing clean, would enable hundreds of homeless addicts to re-establish their lives from within the safe confines of recovery houses rather than tossing them back to fend for themselves after weeks of treatment.

Governments should be brought together to end the wrangles on who is responsible for what. This idea will be one of the corner stones of making sure that the projects that are suggested in curbing the issue of homelessness are well implemented. In the future, political leaders will be aware that it is cheaper to prevent homelessness than to fund the ongoing treatment of homeless individuals (Paulsen, 2007).

Homelessness Prevention

Everyday, families loose their homes and find themselves in a shelter or on the streets. Despite the measures taken by the government and the local community, providing shelter for the homeless has become a major challenge and therefore it has come to their attention that it is better to stop these families from loosing their homes in the first place. Policies and other activities that will prevent an increase of the number of already homeless people will definitely be vital in ending homelessness. Most communities in the United States offer activities that prevent homelessness which including provision of assistance to prevent eviction or house loss. Others include the rehabilitation of young adults from foster care institutions, jail and drug addicts undergoing recovery.

For the effective prevention of homelessness according to (Burt et al 2005), it is important to know its causes and have the ability to predict to whom it can happen to so as to come up with effective interventions. However, the causes of homelessness are not so obvious and so prediction can be less certain. The community that is willing to do away with homelessness will first identify all the risks factors and eradicate them so that they can prevent this problem at least in the short-term.

I t is easy to offer prevention strategies, but it is hard to offer community-wide strategies that are effective in preventing both primary and secondary homelessness. Efficiency is the major cause of failure of these strategies as discussed by (Burt et al 2005) because they target too widely. The people that are targeted are not on the same level and others might not even end up being homeless even after inclusion of such programs leading to a waste of resources. The lesson learnt in homeless prevention efforts is that even the insignificant percentages changes may be termed as effective when dealing with primary prevention because the targeted population is large and also because the consequences of failure are many and costly. When looking at the impacts of interventions designed for secondary and tertiary prevention, however, one should look for stronger effects because the target population is well-defined and interventions can be more precisely tailored.

References

Burt, M. et al. “Strategies for Preventing Homelessness.” US Department of Housing and Urban Development: Office of Policy Development and Research. May 2005. Retrieved from HYPERLINK “http://www.hudre.info/documents/StrategiesForPreventingHomelessness.pdf” http://www.hudre.info/documents/StrategiesForPreventingHomelessness.pdf

Paulsen, M. “Seven Solutions to Homelessness.” The Tyee. Retrieved in 8th January 2007 from HYPERLINK “http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/01/08/HomelessSolutions/” http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/01/08/HomelessSolutions/

(Paulsen, 2007)

Todd, E. (2006). Homelessness: Is Society Looking the Other Way? New York: Nova Science Publishers. Print.