How to Eliminate Homelessness
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How to Eliminate Homelessness
Homelessness is a living condition whereby people lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence and face extreme hardship (Baumohl, 2014). To better understand the homeless crisis, I interviewed Dr. Robert Marbot, the Jr. Executive Director of the United States Interagency Council on Homeless (USICH), to further break down this topic. According to Dr. Robert, the varying definitions of homelessness often make it more difficult for the affected persons to identify and access the most appropriate services. Thus, the USICH, with the mandate of the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act of 2009, recommended a common vocabulary as well as common data standards this would allow different agencies to distinguish the various subpopulation need. The United States government has and is still trying to tackle homelessness on the federal, state, and local levels.
However, curbing homelessness has proved to be a highly complex and dynamic condition that evolves depending on broad population shifts, fluctuations in the economy’s strengths and nature, and the attitude changes of societies towards poor and excluded persons. Over the years, our understanding concerning the causes of homelessness and effective strategic interventions has greatly improved. However, there is still much more that we need to learn and uncover the homelessness issue. Moreover, the recent data assessment indicates that overall there are more men than women experiencing homelessness. As presented by Dr. Robert, New York (47 out of a population of 10000), Hawaii (45 out of 10,000), Oregon (38 out of 10,000) and California (38 out of 10,000) and Washington DC (29 out of 10,000) are the United States cities with the worst homelessness crisis with New York having the highest proportion of homeless residents (nearly 1% of the total population). This, however, is an improvement considering 2017 to 2018, where Washington DC’s homeless population reduced by nearly 8%.
History of homelessness
According to Kusmer (2002), homelessness has its origin in 1640 during colonial America. During this era, the English ‘Vagrants’ were regarded as outcasts, and the authorities were after them. The homelessness crisis increased like never before during the American Revolution as most individuals were forced into homeless due to the inability to meet their needs. During the period before the 1820s, less than 7% of the American population lived in cities. However, industrialization in the 19th century triggered a steady migration to urban areas such as New York, Boston, and California searching for work in these cities. The onset of the Industrial Revolution era ushered in a shift of individual’s lifestyle from an individual’s living and surviving life on rural areas (farms) to a wage-earning work in urban centers dependent on rich employers.
Additionally, after the decline of the civil war, homelessness was facilitated by the national railroad system, urbanization, industrialization, and job mobility resulted in the emergency of tramps ‘riding the rails’ in search of the available jobs. The ‘great army of workers’ was an army of overwhelming non-disabled men who pioneered the search for work in the open road and industrialized America. Subsequently, the emergency of World War II put the entire American nation to work. Over a consecutive three decades, the few individuals who experienced homelessness became increasingly dependent on welfare and often resided in a cheap single room located amongst the poorest urban neighborhoods in America. Fortunately, the people living in single room occupancy SRO during this would be currently considered ‘housed’ under the present Homeless and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) definition of homelessness.
During this time, the lodging rooms in police stations served as the main shelter system for the workers. As a result, most major cities report an increased number of vagabonds. According to the national homelessness statistics, the overall rate of homelessness in the United States is 17 persons out of 10000. The homelessness counts are derived from Point-in-time count, multi-week count, or more sophisticated annual counts generated from the Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) database. HMIS is an electronic system that collects and stores personal data about homeless people who access the homeless system website or interface. According to the HUDs 2019 annual point-in-time count report, over half a million Americans (567715) are experiencing homelessness. However, from the year 2007, homelessness has reduced by 12% Worldwide (Langdon, 2015). Generally, the long-term homelessness trend has been a downward trend except for 2019, where homelessness increased by 3% compared to the previous year (2018).
Table 1
Table 1. Above indicates a HUD point-in-time count data report representing the total number of homeless individuals in 2019. Notably, 37% (200,000) of the overall population sleep outside or in other conditions that are rather not meant for human habitation (unsheltered population). Additionally, 67% of the overall population dwell under sheltered conditions.
The Current Homelessness plans
The United States government is relentlessly tackling the issue of homelessness across all the government levels. The federal government, the state, and the local government have a series of clearly defined goals and objectives focused on ending homelessness. However, to achieve the set benchmark is a challenge; hence necessary strategic plans and efforts must be put in place. The various plans put in place by the United States government aimed at reducing homelessness include;
Increasing the number of shelters available to the homeless. Although having a bed to sleep it doesn’t necessarily mean that someone has a home, the shelters are essential for emergencies (Baumohl, 2014). Increasing the number of shelters helps in getting those willing to be accommodated in the shelters off the streets. The New York Daily News report suggested that most homeless people tend to avoid the shelters since they have to leave food and any other belonging behind, making it harder for them to accumulate anything of sentimental value.
Increasing the number of affordable housing units. The United States government classifies this plan as a long-term solution for homelessness. If more people can afford to house, cities with more homelessness preferences will be different and far less expensive. Through the federal, state, and local government, through the federal low-income housing Tax credit, developers build 100 affordable housing (Langdon, 2015). Most people may wonder, have any of them been effective? Well, the developers usually compete for the available tax credits, and there aren’t enough to build affordable housing for everybody who needs it. Therefore, the affordable houses built can be allocated to those who don’t have homes/shelters in the first place.
Table 2
Table 2. Indicates the Homeless assistance bed inventory progress in the United States from 2007- 2019. The Permanent Supportive Housing program registered the highest supply of permanent housing beds
Helping those with addiction to stay sober and boosting their chances of landing on a job. For instance, through this plan, Utah managed to reduce its chronically-homeless population by 72% within a span of 9years (2005-2014) (Langdon, 2015). According to the Washington Post, the state’s Housing and Community Development Division director owned that the number of chronically homeless individuals in Utah was approaching a functional zero. Housing- first is a program designed to place homeless people in long-term housing without necessarily asking them to get sober or hand on to a job. In addition, after they are settled, they gain access to services such as drug and alcohol treatments, a social worker assigned to them, and job training.
Implementation of Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS). As of June 2005, 72% of the homeless individual s receiving Homeless and Urban Development (HUD) funding are collecting individual private data of homeless persons by using HMIS. HMIS facilitates better capture of information about homelessness both at the state and the local level. This data collected helps to understand better who is homeless in a specific community, particularly among the unsheltered homeless individuals. HMIS advancement will enhance the HUD’s ability to produce a more elaborate and comprehensive national picture of homelessness in the future.
Future homelessness action steps for change
Federal Agency collaboration. Federal agency collaboration involves the collaboration of all the agencies that have dedicated their resources towards reducing or ending homelessness entirely. Ideally, homelessness is a complex social challenge that demands partnership development of the idea to form a solution (Langdon, 2015). Additionally, all the government, federal, state, and local levels must work in collaboration to ensure better decisions are made concerning the homelessness crisis issue.
Policy Academic follow-up. Every state, as well as the U.S Territory, will attend a Homeless Policy Academy. This will aid in the formulation and implementation of a state action plan intended to improve the accessibility of the mainstream health and human services as well as the employment opportunities coordinated hand in hand with housing persons experiencing homelessness.
Primary homelessness prevention. This strategy emphasizes on prevention of first-time homelessness for the population vulnerable to homelessness.
Helping eligible homeless individuals receive health and social services. The United States government will support the empirical studies that relate to homelessness and demonstrate projects that involve developing and testing the effectiveness of the outreach and engagement strategies for several population segments.
Empowering all the agency partners to facilitate the improvement of their response towards homeless individuals. All the collaborating partners will be empowered to facilitate program funding guidance that commands applicants to use HHS and other available federal resources to create and support programmatic strategic plans that formulate an integrated poor people’s safety net as well as disabled families and individuals.
Homelessness increased by 3% from the year 2018-2019, although the point-in-time count statistics indicate that the rate of homelessness has reduced by 12% from the year 2005. Thus, in collaboration with all the partnered agencies, the United States government should not be reluctant since there is a lot that needs to be done as far as the homelessness crisis is concerned. The agencies should not relent until their goal of reducing, if not eliminating, homelessness is a success. During the current pandemic, the homelessness system is facing new challenges, with the pandemic posing more threats to homeless individuals. The United States government, however, has put in place the necessary measures required to offer homeless services to the most vulnerable population segment in the nation.
Reference
Baumohl, J. (Ed.). (, 2014). Homelessness in America. Greenwood Publishing Group.
HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development). (2007) Defining Chronic Homelessness: A Technical Guide for HUD Programs. Retrieved [Nov 19, 2020].
Link: https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/DefiningChronicHomeless.pdf.
Kusmer, K. (2002). Down and out, on the road. The homelessness in American history. New York. Oxford University Press.
Langdon, J. K. (2015). Homelessness in America: Looking for the Right to Shelter. Colum. JL & Soc. Probs., 19, 305.
National Alliance to END HOMELESSNESS. (, 2020). State of homelessness; 2020 edition. Web blog,
Link: https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness-2020/