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I believe what your ignoring gentleman is homelessness and poverty is big business. We spend millions and billions on it nationally. But be honest and look at where the money is going for? Majority of money goes to running the programs before it gets to the people its suppose to help, then take a look at who or what kind of programs are getting funded?
The latest trend in majority funding is in outpatient drug treatment for the homeless(including housing, medical etc) and services for people comming out of jails and prisons homeless and standard souplines and shelters. First the last i checked was recovery from addiction etc was free. For years people of N.A & A.A and others got clean and sober without needing physical needs etc. 2nd whats missing? Could it be real transitional programs? I see we fund souplines and shelters so that people don't die on the streets, and if your a meth addict you can get sober and clean and get housing, medical etc.
So it looks like the entire homeless problem is beyond being solved on a community level, however perhaps parts of it can be. Overall, a bit more compassion for their plight might be helpful, even if not collectively as a group of homeless but at least for the portion who is homeless due to circumstances.
Imagine what it would take for yourself to become homeless, what do you do on a daily basis to avoid that? If you were to become homeless, what would you do on a daily basis and what would be necessary for you to become self sustaining again?
Can some of their needs to get back on their feet be done by non-governmental venues? Beyond food and shelter what else do they need to become a contributing member of society again? In order to gain employment or to make money (not always the same thing) one usually needs to be presentable. Access to showers and washing facilities for clothes would be helpful. Maybe allow laundromats to get tax credits for allowing homeless folks to do a load of laundry once a week? I guess there would have to be some sort of identification for the homeless so they could do this, otherwise lots of non-homeless folks would be doing free laundry. How do we get the homeless access to internet since so much of our society is now online and so many resources are available to folks online would be really helpful. Whether this is access via cellphones or computers at the library, online access is a huge resource.
Hmm, I see a big problem with free services, there would be a whole lot of non-homeless folks using them. Although, would that be a problem or not? Anything to help folks who need it is good, would folks who didn't need it also jump in?
But what if your just a homeless person who wants to work and get off the streets? No transitional housing for that, but if your an addict wanting to work and get a job and get off the streets then yes transition housing is there for you after treatment or prison. We reward negative behavior, but the system is setup for that. Most programs are funded by how many they serve, so its encouraged to set policy that produces the revolving door effect. I knew a guy i mentored who was homeless but found two jobs and was staying in a shelter while working to save money. He worked like 20hrs a day and most of the shelter wasn't working. So they tried to kick him out because he didn't preform his 1hr week chore in the shelter, despite the fact he was working around the clock and there were plenty of guys doing nothing with there lives. Thank god i knew one of the execs that was like wth and protected him.
Look at the times that free food or services for homeless are being performed? When in souplines do homeless guys who are working get to goto the front of the lines if they have jobs to goto? No, most have to stand in line for hrs with everyone else? What times do services happen? 9am-5pm. Working hrs.
I was just reading an article on Hawaii News Now and found this quote very interesting.
"Historically the shelter spaces have consistently been available -- dozens of beds on any given evening. That's a fact and that's been in place -- that's been the existing condition -- for a long time now. That's not going to change for the foreseeable future."
If there is all this shelter space, why aren't homeless people using it?
First of all, dozens of available beds out of 4,396 is not a lot.
Second, that bed count includes "all transitional shelters, emergency shelters, safe havens, permanent supportive housing and mental health assistance." In other words, various shelters have different missions, and one would hope that an emergency shelter for abused women would have beds available at all times.
In addition, all shelters have rules and regulations, be they supported publicly, by religious organizations, or by non-profic charities, with the list of those rules determined in part by the nature of the sponsoring organization. But common among them are curfews, lock-down hours and lights out/quiet hours that some find difficult to agree to. If you are habitually a night owl, for example, but a given shelter locks the doors at 9 pm and has lights out at 9:30, then sleeping in a tent could be a more attractive choice to you.
Or if you have all your "stuff" in a shopping cart, but the shelter doesn't allow shopping carts, then you obviously aren't going to stay there. No alcohol or drugs on premises is common, clean and sober is more restrictive but less common. And either way, if you have a pint of booze in your backpack you're not planning to spend the night in a shelter.
So, there's a self-selective process involved in determining who is in and who is out, depending on whether they can live by the rules. But all of the above is primarily in the domain of what I call Tier 2 Shelters... short-term, transitional housing for those without a permanent home... shared spaces, dormatory beds. Tier 3 is what I like to call aspirational sheltering, minimalist, but with private sleeping spaces, requiring either a small payment or some work exchange, that allow a manageable first step upward towards mainstreaming. Filling in this gap between free shelters and "low-income" housing, which requires a steady income, would help make the transition more attractive and less threatening. At present there is very little available for this niche.
Quote:
But proponents of the (sidewalk) bill say many homeless are choosing not to get help. They say the bill is crucial to what Mayor Kirk Caldwell calls "compassionate disruption". Social service providers have confirmed recent enforcement sweeps have proven if officials make it difficult for people to live on the streets, they will voluntarily move into shelters.
And this gets to what I call Tier 1 sheltering, which is currently unavailable or nearly so in Hawai'i, as far as I can tell. If the "sidewalk" bill passes, and the ensuing "compassionate disruption" drives people off the streets, but they can't abide by the rules in existing shelters, where will they go? My proposed solution is to provide space for their tents, with toilet and shower facilities, at a location well away from the high traffic downtown and tourist areas. Give them an accepted place to go. Otherwise they'll just slip into the cracks and be even harder to manage. Although I'm compassionate about caring for people who are homeless, I don't think that allowing them to interfere with the general public by camping in the middle of everything is reasonable. But you have to give them a choice that is viable, not just chase them away.
Unfortunately there are a couple of civic forces opposed to providing such shelters. One is the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) crowd... no matter where you propose to put such shelter there are people who are OK with the idea, as long as you put it somewhere else not so close to them. And then there are the members of what I call the Upright Citizen's Brigade, who are opposed to doing anything for homeless people because "you can't do anything for them." But in fact, people living "rough" cost the taxpayers money for healthcare and other services, and getting them into at least minimal shelters actually saves the public money and provides opportunities to get people with addictions into treatment and recovery.
If you are not disabled, not mentally ill, not addicted to drugs, not an alcoholic, not a felon, can speak/write in a literate fashion, and have the ability to work and the motivation to work - there are no lack of jobs on Oahu. They might not be jobs people want to do - but they are plentiful.
There is no excuse for able bodied people to be homeless and I doubt that group is statistically significant on Oahu.
"According to Didenko and Pankratz (2007),two-thirds of homeless people report that drugs and/or alcohol were a major reason for their becoming homeless." They are already addicted or an alcoholic.
That's the old "Telephone Game" at work. You were quoting a National Homeless Org article from 2009 that quoted a Didenko and Pankratz article from 2007 that referred to some figures others had given in 2003 and 1991, among them studies from London and from New York & Philadelphia, merely by way of giving some scale to the issue. They then went on to make their central point, which was the reason for the article, that about half the people with addictions acquired them after becoming homeless.
The article you read failed to pass along this critical piece of information, that in their article Didenko and Pankratz were arguing for an integrated approach which recognizes that in many cases homelessness leads to addiction, because of the unpleasantness of being homeless, and all the "shame, fear, hunger and pain" that goes along with it. And further, research shows that stable housing, both before and after treatment, is a key element in recovery from addiction, because it decreases the risk of relapse.
"Probably the most common stereotype of chronically homeless people is that they are drug and alcohol addicts — with good reason. 68% of U.S. cities report that addiction is a their single largest cause of homelessness.*"
If you are not disabled, not mentally ill, not addicted to drugs, not an alcoholic, not a felon, can speak/write in a literate fashion, and have the ability to work and the motivation to work - there are no lack of jobs on Oahu. They might not be jobs people want to do - but they are plentiful.
There is no excuse for able bodied people to be homeless and I doubt that group is statistically significant on Oahu.
I knew a younger friend when i was 20 who became homeless because he was an orphan and a foster kid and had no ohana to fall back on when times got hard. He had the skill and experience only for min wage or low paid labor, so if he got sick for any amount of time or lost his job and didn't have great savings it was the streets he fell onto.
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