Mapping America's Intractable Homelessness Problem

[GDan]

I used to spend my weekends working in homeless shelters. The people who came in after being thrown out on street due to missed rent payments and the like didn't usually spend more than a few weeks before finding a new place to live. The chronic homeless were a different story. I'm not sure of the exact number, but the number of permanently homeless US residents with a traumatic brain injury is somewhere north of 75%. These are people who defecate on the sidewalk, and they are so unstable that they couldn't possibly hold down a job. They should be institutionalised.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

I used to spend my weekends working in homeless shelters. The people who came in after being thrown out on street due to missed rent payments and the like didn't usually spend more than a few weeks before finding a new place to live. The chronic homeless were a different story. I'm not sure of the exact number, but the number of permanently homeless US residents with a traumatic brain injury is somewhere north of 75%. These are people who defecate on the sidewalk, and they are so unstable that they couldn't possibly hold down a job. They should be institutionalised.

In the past they were institutionalized. However during the early 1970's liberal minded people thought it was cruel and unusual punishment for people (who technically haven't committed any crimes or done anything to endanger others) to live their entire lives locked away in mental institutions against their will (think "One who flew over the Cuckoos Nest"). Now it is almost impossible to have people committed. So they live their lives wandering aimlessly on the street homeless or moving from free shelter to free shelter...since apparently that is "better". Last estimate was 124,000 mentally ill people are homeless.

 

[jhungary]

And here's a funny thing; most employers prefer not to hire someone who is homeless. So how are the homeless supposed to work their way out of homelessness? Not to mention that homes are so expensive these days that more and more well-educated people with jobs are having to live with their parents, the homeless don't stand a chance.

The people who are rich aren't rich because they work a million times harder than the average person. They are rich because they can profit off the work of others. That is one of the inherent 'features' of Capitalism. That's why you're supposed to have things like regulations, taxes and social security.


See my response to gambit as far as lazy and hardworking is concerned.

Sure - I'm not saying anything about 'wealth parity' or giving out free money. Proper, carefully planned and executed economic policy is needed, policy that is not influenced by special interests but rather by national interest and the people's interests.

lol, as I said, you are looking at this as a purely economical view. You have missed the equal, if not more important point of social factor.

The lazy and hardworking is just an example, maybe I did not make it clear, or maybe you do not understand it, so here, I am going to further explain to you the problem.

There are only 2 types of people who are homeless, those who have no choice, and those who choose to live on the street.

Let's use two complete welfare state as an example, Australia and Sweden, both country represent a complete welfare state that on basic economical principal, they should not have people who are involuntary homeless, but fact remain, more than 30,000 out of Swedish 10 millions populate are homeless, and more than 100,000 of 24 millions Australian are homeless. In a country that devote immense financial and economical resource to eradicate homelessness problem.

Let's look at Sweden.

It is in Sweden law that government are require to provide housing to Homeless Swede, a system have worked thru volunteer organisation and municipal government to place these homeless people into government or privately own housing.

There are over 900 organisation in Sweden to help homeless people which reach around 30,000, with a near 1 to 1 ratio between homeless and social worker, the problem still stand.

This is due to the fact that even with free food and rent, some homeless choose not to use these be it mentally challenged or willingly slip thru the crack, a portion of homeless people happen to abuse the system by requirement of Swedish Government to provide everything, they stay homeless for that particular reason. A portion of homeless people are homeless because the city they lived in did not have enough housing to house them, and then the final portion of the problem is that people are homeless in Sweden due to the fact that they are unwelcomed because of their history of Alcohol, Drug Abused and Domestic Violence background. These people cannot allot a home because no-one, be it government owner or private owner will choose them as their tenant.

The problem for homelessness in Sweden is that, even tho housing was guaranteed, you either selected into government housing or have an assigned social worker to pay for your rent, problem still exist come down to a basic of a mixture of Mental Illness, Drug and Alcohol Problem, Domestic Violence, and Social Benefit lecher.

In Australia, the Australian government are dealing with homeless people on a different angle with the support of rental assistance and a full amount of New Start Allowance available to all Australian. A $100 Rental Assistance couple with $427 New Start Allowance a fortnight (2 weeks) should be more than enough for any Australian Citizens to find boarding permanently considered a room with utilities are no more than $150 per person per weeks. The $527 in basic calculation could have more than enough to satisfy the weekly accommodation + living expense, in fact, for a normal family of 4, it works out better if you don't works and the whole family on New Start Allowance.

Then the problem should be solved? The fact is, No.

There are estimate 100,000 Homeless Australian, who can qualify for assistance that theoretically, should not be homeless, the problem is, these Australian, a part of them are again mentally disable, the concept of lodging is not common for them, another part is the what we called "dough abuser" where they simply take the $427 a fortnight and they use them to buy drugs, alcohol or gamble it away. By providing enough money for boarding and lodging, it does not works if they are not spend on boarding and lodging.

The problem is that while these government (Australia and Sweden) were looking after its citizen by providing free accommodation or enough money for them to be boarded and lodged, however, due to the social dynamic, not all of them are willing to be help, or willing to help other by looking after the homeless people. The issue, stem from what people view the homeless people, and how homeless people view themselves. The government can only push a bit further unless these people are there to accept the assistance, if not, then anything these government do is useless and these people will fall thru the crack.

On one hand, some homeless people simply refused to accept help, they are either too ashamed due to the social structure we face (thinking of accepting help is a kind of weakness) or they simply don't care and gamble, drink or got high on the money given to you for Home and Lodging.

On the other hand, these government cannot force their hand on their citizen both homeless and people who should provide for the homeless to accept the agreement based on the government assistance, where the social standing and discrimination still stand, a simple question is, if you are a owner of a house, will you be accepting an applicant who were not homeless prior to applying for your properties? Or will you be accepting an applicant who are homeless? While you have a duty to board all Swede by law, but in this case, you can choose only one, and due to social dynamic, most home owner will choose the first one. Even tho the government would back both applicant.

Now, look at the United States, granted, not too many resource were put toward the Homeless problem as much as they do in Australia or Sweden. The problem is, while Australia and Sweden can put that much resource to deal with a relative small problem (100,000 Australian Homeless and 30,000 Swede Homeless) is due to the fact that number is small and is quite manageable, for the American, it is a different ball game

There are 2 million homeless people in America nightly. The problem is, to help these people, the US government would require to devote 25 times the resource than the Australian, and roughly 800 times more resource than the Swede. Not saying it is not gonna do, but rather, on the other hand, US devoted a lot more resource than both Australian and Sweden on Social problem, things like "youth off the street", or other community program, they may not be credited as to solving homeless people directly, they are nonetheless try to tackle the other half of the homeless problem, which is the social responsibility. The grand gesture that they try to eliminate or lower social problem is what help targeting the homeless problem, which is more appropriate for the US government than to try and force some sort of free or low budget government housing.

That is the reason why US homeless data is at 6 per 1000 capita, which is comparable to both Australia and Sweden. Which is at 4 per 1000 and 3 per 1000 respectively.

Just because US does not help directly on the homeless people, does not mean they did not help solving the homeless problem at all.

 

[Bilal9]

Three kinds of people turn homeless in the US.

1. Mainly criminals who don't get jobs to support a place to live
2. Mentally unstable people dumped on the streets by private hospitals at times.
3. Financially irresponsible folks or folks simply having a bad series of unlucky circumstances as far as earning and money goes.

But it is highly (highly!) unusual for any sane person not to find at least minimum wage jobs to support themselves or to have a decent, safe place to live. Most people are temporarily homeless and number of chronically or permanent homeless is extremely low (mainly mentally challenged people).

 

[Butchcassidy]

Three kinds of people turn homeless in the US.

1. Mainly criminals who don't get jobs to support a place to live
2. Mentally unstable people dumped on the streets by private hospitals at times.
3. Financially irresponsible folks or folks simply having a bad series of unlucky circumstances as far as earning and money goes.

But it is highly (highly!) unusual for any sane person not to find at least minimum wage jobs to support themselves or to have a decent, safe place to live. Most people are temporarily homeless and number of chronically or permanent homeless is extremely low (mainly mentally challenged people).

U forgot to add meth and crack junkies to that list. They would account for the largest group

 

[Bilal9]

U forgot to add meth and crack junkies to that list. They would account for the largest group

Yup - my bad. On point.

 

[LeGenD]

People can be homeless due to a number of reasons. They tend to be drug addicts, mentally-challenged, lazy and/or misfits; unlikely to take responsibility and attempt to integrate with the society at large. How they reach that point (medical reasons excluded), is another can of worms.

Even the best of economic model cannot address this complex issue on its own. One solution is to institutionalize such people.

However, it is important to note that Americans are willing to study this problem and do something about it. Not like in Pakistan where roads and Metro are benchmarks of prosperity and nobody here is willing to determine how many are homeless here and do something about it. This is a key difference between a developing state and a developed state.

 

[Fledgingwings]

So How many americans are homeless now??

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Three kinds of people turn homeless in the US.

1. Mainly criminals who don't get jobs to support a place to live.

Also if you are poor and live in public housing and decide to turn to crime...you can get kicked out. Then you are really screwed.