Blog Post 2
Markie Nelson
American Government and Politics
Dr. Jenkins
4/2/2022
Communities Blog Post #2
Continuing on the homeless community issues, the lack of affordable housing is a major problem seen all around the world. Lack of affordable housing could spur from many different reasons, but mainly because of unemployment. Ultimately, one cannot comfortably live without having an income of some sort. So, homeless people are usually not offered housing options that are affordable and accommodable to them. In this case, it is a never-ending cycle of people living on the streets. With the lack of affordable housing comes many consequences for the homeless community and denies them opportunities for a better life. By the Forbes definition, “Housing is considered “affordable” if it consumes less than 30% of a household’s total income” (www.forbes.com). Not even the homeless community, but many people around the world struggle with housing cost burdens. In many situations, it is the low-income class who cannot afford appropriate housing, so people cannot even begin to imagine what homeless people must go through. Affordable housing is ideal for everyone, of course, but with the economy changing nearly every day the solutions for the homeless community are diminishing it seems.
The lack of reasonable and affordable housing has harsh effects on the homeless community. Not only is this community having to live in brutal conditions, but with that comes diseases. Bearing uncontrollable weather conditions is not easy on the human body and no human can survive low, frigid winter nights, without contracting some illness. The weather is a factor in illness, but living in such bad conditions, in general, is not healthy for one’s body. Homeless people usually live in slums and abandoned places. Homeless people do not get the luxury of cleaning supplies or medication. So, when homeless people contract an illness, they usually do not recover, due to the lack of resources they have access too. Along with illness, comes mental health issues for homeless people. Continuously living in the conditions, they do have a toll on one’s mind. According to the Borgen Project website, “One study found that individuals in poor housing exhibit worse mental in 100 percent of cases” (Borgenproject.org). Even if homeless people can afford some type of remedy to their illness, this “prevents individuals from working and threatens the well-being of community members” (Borgenproject.org). Written by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, “Prevent families from facing evictions and homelessness” (nlihc.org). Evictions are another leading cause of homelessness. One thing that keeps homeless people going to provide for a better life is mainly their families.
In an article on endhomelessness.org, it was written,” Researchers and citizens alike suspect this status quo is hurting the nation’s efforts to end homelessness” (endhomelessness.org). With such high costs of housing, this increases the rate of homelessness. Many people could argue that homeless people can easily go get a job anywhere nowadays, but sometimes the homeless community does not have the ability to pursue that. As many people say, it is easier said than done. People who are not homeless do not understand the hardship they have to face every day. Wealthy people think that money will solve everything when it really will not. Mainly organizations for homelessness awareness are scams or do not provide the way that is portrayed to the public eye. So, people end up donating to something that is not what they thought it would be, which changes the public eye and homeless communities’ eye.
Of course, an easy solution to housing for the homeless community is lowering the prices of housing, but with everything in our economy fluctuating, that makes it very difficult for this community. Another solution is more group homes or living options for homeless people. Many people have a stigma that the homeless community cannot provide for themselves and do not try. This can be true in some cases, but many times homeless people do not have the resources available to them, so a solution could be providing resources, such as safe medication and toiletries, for the homeless community. As mentioned previously, evictions are a leading cause of homelessness and a solution to this problem presented by the NLIHC is, “The program could provide temporary financial assistance to help cover rent for households experiencing unexpected economic shocks” (nligc.org). Mentioned on upforgrowth.org about mental health solutions for the homeless community, “… successful policy interventions include important measures like permanent supportive housing and rapid housing and rapid rehousing programs that offer wraparound services along with safe housing” (upforgrowth.org). Homelessness will always be a problem in our economy today, but hopefully by raising awareness and support this problem can come to an end.
Resources:
https://www.upforgrowth.org/news/growing-homelessness-crisis-product-our-national-housing-shortage
https://borgenproject.org/consequences-of-poor-living-conditions/
https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Solutions-to-the-Affordable-Housing-Crisis.pdf