Solution Houston
In addition to being proud of the progressive nods to my new hometown (13 years now), Houston is one of many cities making a great utilization of resources, including the city budget, to provide real-world workable solutions. As outlined in a segment on the show CBS News Sunday Morning on April 14.
The reasoning behind the shift in resource utilization can be explained in the paragraph below, taken from a segment from Last Week Tonight with John Oliver about homelessness:
Housing First programs clearly require significant resources and funding, but it is not like our current approach is cheap. One study in Florida that tracked a decades' worth of spending on just 107 chronically homeless people found that just between money spent on incarceration and emergency medical treatment, their local governments had spent just over $31,000 per person per year, when the estimated cost of providing permanent supportive housing would have only been just over $10,000 per year.
So if your argument against housing for the homeless was purely monetary, congratulations, your concerns have been answered.
A better - and in this case more progressive - approach is to eliminate the concern homeless people have in attempting to get their lives together, and it comes down to one main answer; An address. Not having an address can mean an inability to receive government assistance, have a driver's license or state-issued identification, and ability to apply for a job. Simply having an address can make a major difference in someone attempting to piece together the puzzle of a renewed life in civil society. In addition, when there is a home at that address, formerly homeless people have places to have a stable life, the ability to cook healthier meals, keep themselves and their clothing clean, have an internet connection to search for resources and jobs, and even be able to set their own hours, where they can have the flexibility to take a job outside of the hours of some temporary housing facilities. Yes, some halfway houses restrict the hours a temporary resident can leave and enter back into their services, punishing residents for taking odd-hour positions, even for having missed the bus back to the facility.
The endless cruelties in how America has worked to solve the crises may be coming to an end. Having helped build such houses for Habitat for Humanity in Michigan, and seeing with my own eyes finished buildings here in the Petro Metro, I can tell you these are not palaces. One formerly homeless ex-military veteran profiled in the CBS piece was moved into a 320-sq-ft studio apartment.
'Housing First' is the concept utilized here, and is defined by GivingCompass as:
... homelessness is a problem with a solution, and that the solution is housing...Whether you have a criminal record or not. Whether you have been on the streets for one day or ten years. Permanent housing is what ends homelessness. It is the platform from which people can continue to grow and thrive in their communities... Housing First is a philosophy that values flexibility, individualized supports, client choice, and autonomy. It never has been housing only, and it never should be.
Supportive services are part of the Housing First model. That might include formal support services, like a doctor, therapist, or social worker. It might involve informal supports, like connecting with family, friends, or faith groups.
But, in Housing First, these supports are not prescribed; people have the agency to select the supportive services they need and want, tailoring their supports to their own unique situation.
The CBS report, citing Coalition for the Homeless of Houston and Harris County, tells us that homelessness declined 63% between 2011 and 2022. In a county with 5 million people, more than 30,000 people, thanks to programs like this, have been housed. Helping people stabilize their lives, stabilize and provide services for their health, and allowing them to become productive members of society, acquire jobs, pay taxes back into the system which helped them in the first place. It is a solution based on empathy, humanist principles and a better use of resources.
Maybe now, with new elections of government officials from mayors and state legislators to federal offices coming up in 6 months nationwide, we can look at where prospective electives stand on the issue. And maybe, just maybe, we can then tackle the very real legislative and societal problems which led Art to be homeless in the first place. Maybe now, those formerly homeless individuals will use their addresses to become registered to vote, and help turn over the social and legislative norms which have led to the problem.
On Election Day, Art will certainly be standing in that line.
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