My Views on Building a Shelter for the Homeless

Many advocates and policymakers of housing for the poor believe that to achieve optimal human development of low-income households the location of the housing must be considered as well as the quality of the housing unit (Newman, 2008).

In the student center on the Marietta campus, I along with a friend of mine, assisted in making sandwiches for the homeless. I observed and 30 fellow students rally together and make 500 sandwiches. This action will help provide food for many homeless citizens.

There should be more homeless shelters in America to get people off the streets forever to help people who need it to make America a better place.

One of the simplest pieces of knowledge we acquire in elementary school (for future growth and development) are the three basic needs a living organism requires for living: food, water, and shelter. However, not everyone has access to all of these essentials. Homeless people are faced with awful conditions and suffer more due to poor weather conditions, diseases, and lack of safety. There hasn’t been much progress on this issue, and if this continues, the number of homeless people will only increase. In a few states the topic is being named as a “statewide emergency”, but unfortunately this problem is national. Instead of focusing on state programs, local programs and non-profit organizations to fix the housing issue, we must all contribute to ending this epidemic. The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) released an article stating, “In January 2015, 564,708 people were homeless on a given night in the United States” (Snapshot of Homelessness). We must develop a solution to end long term homelessness immediately. The best way of solving this issue is to provide stable long-term housing, which is a term used to describe the home’s environment and financial status.

    Start building this shelter and watch the percentages drop. The drug and alcohol rates will steadily decrease as well as crime rates. What will increase actually will look great for our city, as sanitation and city morale will boost.  It’s quite clear that taking abandoned buildings and turning them to homeless shelters will help the people in need and the city of

Homelessness seems to constantly trigger debates among our society. It has since caused a complex social problem between U.S. citizens and multiple cities worldwide. Cities across the nation have passed a law that criminalizes the act of feeding the homeless, has restricted simple acts of compassion, and have required the purchase of permits to utilize public areas. According to Robbie Couch,” The outlet reports that, incredibly, at least 33 municipal bans on publicly handing out food have been enacted across the U.S. between January 2013 and April 2014, reflecting a sharp increase in communities with such restrictions…. This past February, Columbia S.C., began requiring groups of 25 people or more to purchase permits allowing them to utilize the city’s parks.” I know many will probably agree and say something along the lines of “By restricting the feeding of the homeless, it would motivate more homeless individual to get off the streets”. Houston Mayor Annise Parker stated, “Making it easier for someone to stay on the street is not humane”. Feeding bans are allowing an increase in chronic hunger, allowing stereotypes that are ill-treating those who are experiencing homelessness and allowing homeless individual’s mental, physical, and emotional health to weaken as time progresses.

They gain access to programs and services after they get settled in, such as rehabilitation programs, on the job training, and a social worker assigned specifically to them. These programs and services are completely voluntary and by no means required by the resident. “Through housing-first, Utah reduced its chronically-homeless population 72 percent between 2005 and 2014.” (Semuels) This statistic shows that housing-first would be a very fast and effective solution to the United States’ homelessness problem. Another way the US could cut down on homeless people is to require developers to provide both permanent supportive housing and low-income housing in their buildings. This is a solution because homes can be made available to a larger part of the population. This kind of mixed-use housing helps create communities made up of different individuals who in turn look out for one another, for example, “in one building in Harlem, single moms living in affordable housing helped out the ex-cons living in supportive housing, and vice versa.” (Semuels)

When it comes to addressing homelessness, one of the biggest obstacles faced by many communities has to do with the providing of homeless support services (HSS).” (https://slohomeless.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/why-do-some-people-object-to-helping-the-homeless/) Many people say the issue needs to be “dealt’ with, but when it comes to building a shelter, the community often opposed the idea. “There are numerous reasons why some folks in any given community are against expanding services – or even providing any type of HSS altogether.” Some of the most common objections are, Not In My Backyard (NIMBY),”These folks will complain bitterly that something needs to be done about the homeless...They go to great lengths to make themselves appear as though they are not uncaring. Yet, these same folks are the ones who object the loudest…” Then there are the people who say, “It cost to much.” Yes I understand that it needs a lot of money to make the shelters but, it would help with getting the homeless off the streets and maybe they could get cleaned up and find a job. One of the last common ones is , “ Providing services will draw more homeless to the community.” That’s true but only for an extent. Yes Iknow it will bring the homeless to the community but think of all the homeless Veterans we could save. Think of the people who chose to serve for our country and we just want them to willow away on the

With a large homeless community and vacant houses one of the first natural thoughts could be to renovate these houses, and turn them into homes for the homeless. But, it just may not be that simple. In the article, Barbara Samuels, who is a managing attorney for the ACLU of Maryland’s Fair Housing Project referenced an attempt to do that exact same thing about two decades ago. A developer named James Rouse and city officials put forth more than $130 million into a poverty-stricken neighborhood to rehabilitate houses and build more, and sadly there are even more vacant houses than before. Unfornately, this probably caused some people to feel there is nothing that can be done, and loose all hope in restoring these homes.

The city should build more homeless shelters to help people get back on their feet, because no one should have to live on the streets and feel like a second-class citizen. No one should have to live on the streets, it is not healthy, physically or emotionally. Being homeless can be very stressful and can lead to mental health issues causing people to make poor decisions to be able to survive. People will constantly get into some sort of trouble so they can be arrested and go to jail just so they can sleep in a bed or be given food because if the shelters are full the only other place that offers free food and a bed is the county jail.

There are homeless people all over the streets nowadays. With the job marketing going the way it’s going the growth of the homeless is becoming larger. There are all ages of the homeless and most of them are trying to find a job. I believe that the government should help get the homeless off the streets, that way it would be better for everyone, no more begging for money on the corners the homeless could find a way for them to. The government could open shops, help provide work in the community for the homeless, and provide shelter at night.

Gentrification has been a huge issue and it is still affecting us today. Everyone has a different point of view toward this subject. The city government and house owners would think that gentrification is beneficial because the neighborhood would have less crime, a better looking neighborhood, and more jobs. Contrary to this belief, other people believe that is affecting the area for the worse. The long-time and low-income residents of the neighborhood would feel this way towards gentrification because people lose their houses due to the overpriced rent.

One of the problems at hand that not only us, in the United States have but, all around the world in different countries have, is homeless people.

In today’s society, it may seem that gentrification can eliminate poverty and increase neighborhood opportunities. Low-income residents and property owners will be the first to be altered by gentrification. In an email to the editor at the Atlantic, Freeman, the director of the Urban Planning program at Columbia states “ Gentrification brings new amenities and services that benefit not only the newcomers but long term residents too. Full service

Homelessness is a person or a family that don’t have a place to use as a house or shelter. US government provides emergency/winter shelters for homeless people living in the United States. Winter shelters are really useful for homeless people, but there is one problem about this service. States have the control of opening and closing these shelters. Before the beginning of winter, every state chooses a temperature to open winter shelters, and they open shelters when the weather is lower than the chosen temperature. For example New York City decided to open its winter shelters when the weather is colder than 32 F previous winter. Every state has a different temperature to open its shelters. Lethal hypothermia can be caused when the