Homelessness: What Should be Done
According to a United Nations report, currently five hundred million people around the world are either homeless or living in low-quality housing and are in danger of becoming homeless (4). With so many people being affected by this problem, something must be done to fight it. Homelessness is a tremendous problem, and there are many steps that must be taken if it is to ever end.
First, more affordable housing must be built. In many countries, prices of homes are rising rapidly as a result of other problems such as economic inflation and overpopulation. However, obtaining permanent housing is a crucial step for those trying to get their lives back on track and improve their futures. Once they have secured homes for themselves, they can focus on fixing other problems in their lives holding them back. Furthermore, in many developing countries, it can be difficult for homeless individuals to find and maintain a job when they have no phone number or permanent address, not to mention a place in which to change their clothes and bathe. In order to change their lives around, they need to obtain some sort of home. Therefore, governments must grant more funding to the construction of subsidized housing. They can raise money for this by increasing taxes. Now, as mentioned in the national portion, taxpayers may complain about having the pay raised taxes to finance the building of affordable housing. However, in many developed countries, a large portion of taxes is used to pay for services for the homeless and poor such as Medicaid. If these people obtained homes and became stabilized, taxpayers would actually save money. Therefore, paying taxes now to help fund the construction of supportive housing will ultimately benefit them as well. Furthermore, the governments can also decrease military spending and use some of it to fund the housing. War is one of the major causes of homelessness throughout the world, destroying homes and villages, and tearing families apart (1). Moreover, a tremendous amount of natural resources and funding is put into military expansion, something that can only lead to more homelessness. The government should take a portion of these resources and money and put it to better use: funding the construction of more affordable housing. As for undeveloped and developing countries, as much money as possible should be set aside by governments to help pay for more housing for their citizens. Individuals can help by donating money to organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, which builds simple, affordable housing all around the globe.
In addition to housing, more money should be used to build transitional and emergency shelters. People living on streets are extremely vulnerable to changes in weather and in some places, can actually freeze to death. For example, in Ireland people die on the streets weekly as a result of a lack of housing and services (5). Homeless people are also often targets of violence and abuse, and would be much safer in shelters, where they are also given food and access to services and programs. Federal grants should be used to help fund existing shelters, as well as the construction of additional ones. The money used for this could come from increased taxes as well as decreased military spending in developed nations. As for undeveloped and developing countries, many of them are ridden with debt to foreign nations and are therefore unable to fund the building of housing and shelters for their homeless citizens. Perhaps developed nations, especially the G-8 nations, could consider canceling these debts and even give countries with serious homeless problems long-term, low-interest-rate loans to help finance the construction.
Next, some cities in developed countries have laws prohibiting such things as “loitering”, “pan-handling”, and “vagrancy”, and allow police to arrest individuals who break these laws (2). In other words, homeless are prohibiting form residing outdoors and from begging. However, by arresting homeless people and giving them criminal records, all police are doing is making it even more difficult for them to secure and maintain jobs. Rather, these laws should be revoked, and instead of putting homeless in prison, police should guide them to shelters where they can receive the attention and assistance they need to get their lives back on track. Police, shelters, and service providers should all work together to help homeless populations as best as possible.
Another important step in the fight against homelessness is understanding. In order to get to the “root of the problem” and find the best solutions, the government must grant additional funding for research and data collection on this issue. Doing so will also allow organizations to better meet the needs of the homeless population and tell service providers if they need to update certain services. Besides this, data collection can give organizations a better idea of the main factors that lead to homelessness and how to prevent the problem.
One of the factors leading to homelessness is the inability to afford both food and shelter. When faced with a choice between the two, people will usually choose food, considering shelter the lower priority (4). More money needs to be given to food banks and shelters so that homeless and potentially homeless will be provided with adequate meals. If they no longer have to worry about scrounging up enough money to pay for their next meals, they no longer have to make a choice between food and shelter, and can focus all of their efforts on securing and maintaining housing. However, besides relieving homeless individuals from having to make a choice between food and shelter, extra funding for shelters and food banks is needed because having a good diet is extremely important. According to the Institute of Medicine, there are about 100,000 children homeless in the U.S. every night (4). There are millions more around the world. Many of these children rely on shelters and food banks for most of their food. Unfortunately, these meals are often very limited in nutritional value and are usually “high in salt, fat, preservatives, and empty calories” (4). Moreover, according to studies, a poor diet during childhood often causes long-term health and cognitive problems, which can compromise the children’s ability to find and maintain employment in the future. Therefore, shelters and food banks need additional funding so they can provide the homeless with better quality food. They can get this money from either private donations from individuals and organizations, or from the government.
In addition to food and housing assistance, other services for the homeless and the potentially homeless are essential in helping them. However, the services needed by homeless populations vary in different areas, as the conditions being experienced by them are also different. For example, in the U.S. and other developed countries where some of the main causes of homelessness are domestic violence, mental illness, and addiction disorders, needed services include counseling, mental health facilities, and substance abuse programs. For these services, governments should increase taxes to help fund them, as they are crucial in helping people re-build their lives. Furthermore, as I mentioned before, taxpayers will ultimately save money by helping to fund these services now. In sub-Saharan Africa however, there are currently twenty five million orphaned children, twelve million of which were orphaned because of the AIDS epidemic (3). In addition to these kids, many millions more have parents who are ill and are unable to work, leaving the children the responsibility of providing for the entire family. As a result, kids have to drop out of school to get jobs and care for their sick parents (3). This is wrong; children should not be giving up education to watch over their parents. African countries should provide the needy families with services such as free education, access to free health care, food, and water. Kenya has tried out an idea in which cash grants were given directly to children most in need of the extra assistance. In this “project” five hundred households are given about $6.50 per “vulnerable or orphaned child” each month. While that amount may seem extremely small to us, it had a tremendous impact on those receiving the payments. Families had “better access to education and health care and improved nutrition” (3). Their standards of living rose from being given just that small amount of money. The other sub-Saharan African countries should follow Kenya in enacting this plan. However, funding for all of these services will be difficult to obtain. Hopefully private donations from individuals and organizations will be given to help pay for them. The governments of the countries themselves should create larger budgets to address these problems as well. Finally, as previously mentioned, wealthy developed countries should relieve these poorer nations of their past debts. This will allow the governments more money to spend on these services.
Finally, in order to solve worldwide homelessness, the homeless problem must first be tackled on a local and national level. How can we solve global homelessness when we currently have three million homeless individuals in our own country? Sure, we can help undeveloped and developing nations by lending and donating money to help them out. However, if homelessness is ever to end, each country must take responsibility for their own citizens and take adequate action to improve their living situations. Only once a country has eradicated its own homeless problem can it fully focus on helping others.
1) http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1309/is_n3/v25/ai_6811552
2) http://www.nscahh.org/hunger.asp?id2=8800
3) http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/4631911.stm
4) http://www.faqs.org/nutrition/Hea-Irr/Homelessness.html
5) http://www.focusireland.ie/htm/housing_homelessness/facts_figures/causes.htm