Bring US homeless in from the cold

[CHIMO]

Last week's United Nations' findings on America's homeless crisis couldn't have been more timely or more depressing. Three years into the post-housing bubble era, special rapporteur Raquel Rolnik detailed a growing crisis in which the poorest of the poor are, literally, left out in the cold while hundreds of billions of dollars are being pumped into propping up the broader pillars of the economy.

The combination of 16 million workers unemployed with an unprecedented housing market meltdown and collapse in state and local finances has magnified the misery of homelessness in the world's richest country.

The crisis is multi-layered: for the long-term homeless, for those with mental health and drug addiction problems, for women and children fleeing domestic violence, for military veterans experiencing PTSD, as local and state services are slashed the likelihood that they will end up sleeping on park benches or under bridges grows. In California, for example, domestic violence shelters have suffered disproportionately high cuts in recent months as the governor and legislators look for ways to fill huge holes in the state's budget. In other states, mental health services for the indigent and poor have been decimated. Peruse local newspapers, and you'll see stories such as the one in last week's Charlotte Observer, in North Carolina, detailing cuts to services for pregnant women with drug abuse problems. Mental health advocates in Ohio have recently documented multi-million dollar cuts to housing services for the state's mentally ill.

At the same time as social services for the mentally ill and drug addicted shrink, for low income families reliant on housing subsidies from city housing authorities around the country the crisis means more are likely to be turned away from programmes or given rent assistance so small that, in effect, it's useless. And, even if they don't end up homeless, many tens of thousands will end up in utterly overcrowded, squalid conditions. In Los Angeles, city council president Eric Garcetti recently told me, the least-bad solution that the housing authority hit upon, in order to avoid having to cut families off entirely, was to restrict the assistance offered to subsidies for the rental of one-bedroom apartments. Thus, no matter the size of the family, LA's default will be to locate them in single bedroom units. In Jacksonville, Florida, homeless advocates report that over 100 low-income families lost their housing vouchers over the summer. In New York City, millions of dollars are being cut from homeless prevention programmes and legal services for tenants facing eviction. And in Washington DC, the nation's capital, homeless services are facing a $20m reduction in the next fiscal year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/nov/16/homeless-crisis-america

[Bitwit1234]

1. Since a lot of houses are selling for practically nothing

why don't the rich buy up some large homes. Fix them up to be like the old type boarding houses. Set the homeless up in their own room. Let them get on their feet and when they are ready to move on, let someone else move it. I bet some of those old warehouses and big old empty hotels in New York and large cities would be perfect. Shelters could run them, provide food and such like the do now with charitable money.

[Yehonala]

3. You SHould Try It

You should get a grant for it. We have plenty of places for the homeless to go, get help, and then get on their feet. Why not have those Hollywood celebs donate a home or two, considering how much they make, they could easily fund one of the homes that you describe. It really is quite brilliant. All these empty places and we could easily get people off of the streets.

[truedelphi]

2. How dare the UN call out the USA for the planned & carried out decimation of

The lower (And not so lower) middle incomed class.

And then you have the likes of Malcolm Gladwell spouting off about Reno's million dollar man, and even going so far as to spout his story on Charlie Rose. (It seems that one of Reno NV's homeless men has cost that city one million dolalrs in police, social services and hospital expenses in a single twelve month period.) But why should that tripe convince people that having the homeless fend for themselves isn't the best answer!

:sarcasm: for those whose sarcasm deteter is on the blink today.