I can tell you the problem with the current solution to end homelessness. I can also tell you the most effective way to end homelessness, based on several peer reviewed journal articles and several years in the field working with the population. Should only take 5 minutes…

I will first need to define homelessness. It is a person who is inhabiting a place not meant for human habitation. Someone without a home. It is not, substance abuse disorder, mental illness, domestic violence… These things are not side effects of becoming homeless. These are the antecedents. The issues that exacerbate the search for an affordable place to live.  We can address why the apparent lack of effective treatments for these antecedents exists but first, homelessness.

The problem with the U.S. is there are just not enough affordable homes. Interestingly enough, there are a ton of open spaces and cheap housing possibilities all over the U.S. Like in Utah and Montana. Yet, most of the U.S. population is attracted to large cities that tend to develop huge urban areas. These areas tend to accommodate more than what is sanitary and reasonable so huge efforts are made to work toward effective sanitation and waste removal from these city areas to the hinterlands.  Because of that, these areas can accommodate large populations of unsheltered homeless men, women and children. Especially if these places have reasonable weather. Because these conditions exist in areas like L.A., New York, and Seattle there tends to be higher amounts of people experiencing homelessness in these areas. The problem becomes more visible as per capita numbers increase. L.A. and New York have the two largest homeless populations of the U.S., and that’s not per capita.

L.A. and New York combined have around 100,000 homeless people. That’s more than the amount of people evacuated from Dunkirk. The rest of the U.S. split up the rest of the other approximate 400,000 homeless. These are not all people who are using drugs, psychotic and lazy. These are people with families who are underrepresented in data and we can talk about why (program policy creates single households etc.) later. People with disabilities. People with personalities. Your friends! Distant or close relatives! These are people who for whatever reason can’t go home.

I’ve seen a woman dying of cancer. In a winter shelter. A winter shelter that wouldn’t even exist in a couple of months. With her two kids! 17 and 18. We made an exception to allow the 17 year old to stay. Another couple couldn’t stay at the shelter because their work hours conflicted with the curfew that was implemented to appease the neighborhood who voted for the legislation needed to fund the very shelter they hated. They hated it before they even saw the pregnant woman crying herself to sleep on a cot in the middle of December. The community demanded that the city require the Winter Shelter to operate a shuttle service to and from the front of the church so that they wouldn’t have to see that pregnant woman! They hated her before they even saw her! They demanded that this shelter not even exist, yelling at the top of their lungs in a town meeting, “We don’t want it!”

Shame on Pacoima.

Because of the stigma associated with the more visible problems some of those experiencing homelessness are facing, homelessness has been deemed the result of bad decisions. There are many cases where this is in fact the case. But let’s not dilute the problem. There are not enough homes.

So, the problem as of now is:

- “Free shit like housing subsidies, are to be used to subsidize the lack of housing. We will allot these services to those who are costing us the most money. The rest we can provide outdoor bathrooms and damn near condemned, non-ADA compliant buildings. No one cares about these dead beats anyway… Because clearly this is more of an issue of people making bad decisions, and not a lack of housing.”

But. It turns out, those who are costing cities and private businesses like insurance companies the most (chronically homeless or most acute) are also the most difficult to provide services to.

So, because you saw one drunk person who didn’t have a home (supposedly) walking around peeing on shit, you decided, “That’s homelessness.” Similar to the way Donald Trump looks at human beings from 5 feet in another direction as not to be trusted criminals ready to rush the border at any minute and live the good life of Medicaid and minimum wage. All because a couple people made their way over here and did some heinous shit.

And because you think this way, I’m stuck all day trying to shove that drunk guy you saw in a fucking shared living because turns out he has no income (SSI, SSDI, GR, Saw a guy with music Royalties from a Tupac song that he produced, but it was 10 cents a pop… Death row Records) is mentally ill and couldn’t afford shit even if he wasn’t wasted and self-medicating. Oh, and that guy with a drinking problem, data shows a positive relationship with drinking and being housed! Meaning, once you house someone with a substance use disorder (especially Alcohol Use Disorder) their drinking gets worse!  

So, instead of seeing that guy and saying, “Why aren’t we investing in more substance abuse treatments and treatment/placements for the mentally ill? Why aren’t insurance companies doing a better job of covering substance abuse and mental illness? The very thing that exacerbates health conditions! Instead subsidizing nonprofit agencies and writing it off…. How have we failed this person with no home?”

Instead, we’re saying, “I don’t want to look at that guy, put him somewhere. Anywhere but here.”

Shame on us.

Meanwhile, the guy who is ready to go. Wants to work. Has a truck. Tools. Even doing a little work when he can, while he sleeps in his vehicle… That guy who just lost his job because this country is trying to figure out, “What the fuck?” That guy doesn’t qualify for shit because he wasn’t in front of your Los Feliz apartment pissing on your bullshit Manzanita Bush, that you don’t own anyway, while you work on some bullshit “art” thing you’re into, watch Netflix and sell coffee. 

Bean water. BEAN WATER!

So, the problem with homeless services:

Services (essentially housing) are prioritized poorly due to stigma and there is an apparent lack of services for antecedents that have led to acute homelessness.

The solution:

Build approximately 50,000,000 low income units (nice low income units) and make more housing alternatives safer and available to those who can’t adapt to permanent housing.

The construction of fifty million units will alleviate the unavailability of Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8) by creating an alternative housing options to that program. It would also create an alternative for those who don’t necessarily need the case management associated with Permanent Supportive Housing who are only utilizing that program for the subsidy that accompanies it. This would make more available PSH to those who actually need it while providing affordable housing for those who are able to live independently without supportive services.

And that my friends is why no one wants to fix the problem. You think I’m the only motherfucker to figure this shit out? Nobody wants to build 50,000,000 units people can afford…

So, remember that some level of homelessness is inevitable. But that’s not the real issue, is it. It’s the visibility. And nobody wants to build affordable housing.

Period.

Now get out there and figure out how you can advocate for more affordable housing.

Thanks.

I can tell you the problem with the current solution to end homelessness. I can also tell you the most effective way to end homelessness, based on several peer reviewed journal articles and several years in the field working with the population.

Should only take 5 minutes…

I will first need to define homelessness. It is a person who is inhabiting a place not meant for human habitation. Someone without a home. It is not, substance abuse disorder, mental illness, domestic violence… These things are not side effects of becoming homeless. These are the antecedents. The issues that exacerbate the search for an affordable place to live.  We can address why the apparent lack of effective treatments for these antecedents exists but first, homelessness.

The problem with the U.S. is there are just not enough affordable homes. Interestingly enough, there are a ton of open spaces and cheap housing possibilities all over the U.S. Like in Utah and Montana. Yet, most of the U.S. population is attracted to large cities that tend to develop huge urban areas. These areas tend to accommodate more than what is sanitary and reasonable so huge efforts are made to work toward effective sanitation and waste removal from these city areas to the hinterlands.  Because of that, these areas can accommodate large populations of unsheltered homeless men, women and children. Especially if these places have reasonable weather. Because these conditions exist in areas like L.A., New York, and Seattle there tends to be higher amounts of people experiencing homelessness in these areas. The problem becomes more visible as per capita numbers increase. L.A. and New York have the two largest homeless populations of the U.S., and that’s not per capita.

L.A. and New York combined have around 100,000 homeless people. That’s more than the amount of people evacuated from Dunkirk. The rest of the U.S. split up the rest of the other approximate 400,000 homeless. These are not all people who are using drugs, psychotic and lazy. These are people with families who are underrepresented in data and we can talk about why (program policy creates single households etc.) later. People with disabilities. People with personalities. Your friends! Distant or close relatives! These are people who for whatever reason can’t go home.

I’ve seen a woman dying of cancer. In a winter shelter. A winter shelter that wouldn’t even exist in a couple of months. With her two kids! `17 and 18. We made an exception to allow the 17 year old to stay. Another couple couldn’t stay at the shelter because their work hours conflicted with the curfew that was implemented to appease the neighborhood who voted for the legislation needed to fund the very shelter they hated. They hated it before they even saw the pregnant woman crying herself to sleep on a cot in the middle of December. The community demanded that the city require the Winter Shelter to operate a shuttle service to and from the front of the church so that they wouldn’t have to see that pregnant woman! They hated her before they even saw her! They demanded that this shelter not even exist, yelling at the top of their lungs in a town meeting, “We don’t want it!”

Shame on Pacoima.

Because of the stigma associated with the more visible problems some of those experiencing homelessness are facing, homelessness has been deemed the result of bad decisions. There are many cases where this is in fact the case. But let’s not dilute the problem. There are not enough homes.

So, the problem as of now is:

- “Free shit like housing subsidies, are to be used to subsidize the lack of housing. We will allot these services to those who are costing us the most money. The rest we can provide outdoor bathrooms and shit, damn near condemned buildings, non-ADA compliant buildings. No one cares about these dead beats anyway… Because clearly this is more of an issue of people making bad decisions, and not a lack of housing.”

But. It turns out, those who are costing cities and private businesses like insurance companies the most (chronically homeless or most acute) are also the most difficult to provide services to.

So, because you saw one drunk person who didn’t have a home (supposedly) walking around peeing on shit, you decided, “That’s homelessness.” Similar to the way Donald Trump looks at human beings from 5 feet in another direction as not to be trusted criminals ready to rush the border at any minute and live the good life of Medicaid and minimum wage. All because a couple people made their way over here and did some heinous shit.

And because you think this way, I’m stuck all day trying to shove that drunk guy you saw in a fucking shared living because turns out he has no income (SSI, SSDI, GR, Saw a guy with music Royalties from a Tupac song that he produced, but it was 10 cents a pop… Death row Records) is mentally ill and couldn’t afford shit even if he wasn’t wasted and self-medicating. Oh, and that guy with a drinking problem, data shows a positive relationship with drinking and being housed! Meaning, once you house someone with a substance use disorder (especially Alcohol Use Disorder) their drinking gets worse!  

So, instead of seeing that guy and saying, “Why aren’t we investing in more substance abuse treatments and treatment/placements for the mentally ill? Why aren’t insurance companies doing a better job of covering substance abuse and mental illness? The very thing that exacerbates health conditions! Instead subsidizing nonprofit agencies and writing it off…. How have we failed this person with no home?”

Instead, we’re saying, “I don’t want to look at that guy, put him somewhere. Anywhere but here.”

Shame on us.

Meanwhile, the guy who is ready to go. Wants to work. Has a truck. Tools. Even doing a little work when he can, while he sleeps in his vehicle… That guy who just lost his job because this country is trying to figure out, “What the fuck?” That guy doesn’t qualify for shit because he wasn’t in front of your Los Feliz apartment pissing on your bullshit Manzanita Bush, that you don’t own anyway, while you work on some bullshit “art” thing you’re into and watch Netflix and sell coffee.  Bean water. BEAN WATER!

So, the problem with homeless services:

Services (essentially housing) are prioritized poorly due to stigma and there is an apparent lack of services for antecedents that have led to acute homelessness.

The solution:

Build approximately 50,000,000 low income units (nice low income units) and make more housing alternatives safer and available to those who can’t adapt to permanent housing.

The construction of fifty million units will alleviate the unavailability of Housing Choice Vouchers (Section 8) by creating an alternative housing options to that program. It would also create an alternative for those who don’t necessarily need the case management associated with Permanent Supportive Housing who are only utilizing that program for the subsidy that accompanies it. This would make more available PSH to those who actually need it while providing affordable housing for those who are able to live independently without supportive services.

And that my friends is why no one wants to fix the problem. You think I’m the only motherfucker to figure this shit out? Nobody wants to build 50,000,000 units people can afford…

So, remember that some level of homelessness is inevitable. But that’s not the real issue, is it. It’s the visibility. And nobody wants to build affordable housing.

Period.

Now get out there and figure out how you can advocate for more affordable housing.

Thanks.