"The bulk of the " literature on homelessness fits into two categories, one focusing on the personal problems believed to characterize homeless individuals, and the other on structural conditions believed to increase homelessness. These different perspectives are typically associated with quite different social policies, one seeking to reform social services to better address the implicated pathologies, especially drug abuse or psychiatric impairment, the other focusing on restructuring the labor market, creating low-income housing, and remodeling welfare. Although these perspectives are in many ways contradictory, they implicitly share an important but usually unaddressed issue: they assume that current policy is a consequence of functioning bureaucracies executing the logic and will of top policy makers and that future policy will reflect government priorities in the same way," Gerstel, et al.vii In my opinion, neither policy is correct. Until we take steps to regain our government and our economy by removing the Federal Reserve from our government and our pockets, we will continue to increase homelessness.
What does the Federal Reserve have to do with homelessness? Everything! The government relinquished its power to create money to the Federal Reserve banks -12 privately owned monopolies. The banks print money based on nothing of intrinsic value (unbacked paper, fiat money,) then loan it to the government and charges interest on the loan. In other words, they write checks against money they print -- "paper issued against paper".
By first causing inflation then raising the discount rate, the Federal Reserve System sets up depressions just as they did following World War I and again in 1929-31. The revelation of the Federal Reserve Board's final decision to trigger the Crash of 1929 appeared in The New York Times on April 20, 1929. This report describes a mystery meeting where resolutions to bring down the curtain on the greatest speculative boom in American history were adopted by the Federal Advisory Council. The New York Federal Reserve Bank rate, which dictated the national interest rate, went to six percent on November 1, 1929. After the investors had been bankrupted, it dropped to one and one-half percent on May 8, 1931. "Thus we find that not only was the Federal Reserve System responsible for the First World War, which it made possible by enabling the United States to finance the Allies, but its policies brought on the world-wide depression of 1929-31," Governor Adolph C. Miller stated at the Senate Investigation of the Federal Reserve Board in 1931. From the very beginning, the Federal Reserve System was based on manipulation, obfuscation and lies. In actual fact, the Federal Reserve System is not federal; it has no reserves; and is not a system. It is in direct opposition to Section 8, paragraph 5 of the Constitution and it destroys the systems of checks and balances of power set up by Thomas Jefferson in the Constitution.
This manipulation of interest rates is responsible for the ease or difficulty of affording housing. It also dictates our dollar value based on the "loans" (remember, there is nothing in back of these loans except worthless paper) to our government and the interest rate set for those "loans". The government then borrows more to cover the costs of providing for the homeless whose numbers keep increasing because there are fewer jobs and the dollars buys less and less.
"The complexities of how to effectively address the changing needs of homeless families set the stage for one of the most challenging public policy and service delivery issues". One fact remains". While shelters can provide a clean and safe environment for a homeless family, the shelter system should not simply be a way station until permanent housing is secured. To truly address the needs of these [homeless], independent living skills, complete their education, and obtain job training before moving to permanent housing."iv
Given the demographic changes that have occurred over the last twelve years, what characteristics will homeless families have twelve years from now? Will they differ significantly from today? I believe they will continue increasing with more families unable to afford housing, food, medical and other basic necessities. I believe we will no longer have a middle class. There will be the wealthy class and the homeless unless the Federal Reserve is stopped.
Since homelessness is a combination of problems, will it take a combination of solutions? Just providing shelter is a stopgap measure and does not offer a long-term solution to the different facets of the problem. Innovative programs to assist not only in shelter but also in treatment for substance abuse, community-based counseling programs, educational enhancement, employment training, assistance with child care, and training in independent living skills such as parenting, domestic violence, "empowerment to overcome feelings of oppression and to develop personal and interpersonal self-awareness and development of skills for survival and social power," Applewhite (1992) quoting Gutierrez, GlenMaye, & DeLois, 1995, house keeping and maintenance, and budgeting "A lack of affordable housing may generate homelessness, but the failure to treat alcoholism, mental illness, drug addiction, physical disability or other problems among those who have become homeless causes these afflictions to worsen, reducing the possibility of simply rehousing them, Gerstel, et al.vii But we must first return to the old way of doing these things.
Help must come from non-government funding -- churches, private agencies and community groups. The country's budget must be balanced and all further borrowing must be eliminated. Our government has to take back its Constitutional right to print our money according to Executive Order 11110.
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Resources:
Gerstel, N, Bogard, C. J., McConnell, J. J., Schwartz, M. (1996). "The Therapeutic Incarceration of Homeless Families". Social Service Review, December, 1996
McKinney-Vento Act sec. 725(2); 42 U.S.C. 11435(2) 1987.
U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2005
Applewhite, S.L. (1992). "Homeless Veterans: Perspectives on Social Services Use". Social Work 42(1), December 1997.
Homes For The Homeless (1992, June). "The New Poverty: A Generation of Homeless Families" http://www.opendoor.com/hfh/new_poverty.html
DiNitto, D. M. (1995). Social Welfare Politics and Public Policy (4th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon (87)
