Pad 500 Assignment 3

Homelessness has been a prevalent and contentious topic since its public emergence in the 1980’s. In fact, according to the most recent estimates, on any given night in the United States, there are roughly 645,000 people residing in homeless shelters or unsheltered street locations (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2011). And based on a local study done by the Mental Health Unit at the Houston Police Department in 2011, Houston has the largest homeless population in Texas and the eighth largest in the United States. While many great efforts have been put forth to aid the homeless population in Houston, “the public health epidemiology task of quantifying and tracking child and family homelessness over time has been complicated…by increasing rates of…shortages [in] affordable housing” (Grant et al., 2013), and restrictions on temporary encampments (Loftus-Ferren, 2013). In order to successfully reduce, prevent and combat homelessness, more policies must be put in place to create sustainable, affordable housing for homeless families and to modify current laws that harm homeless individuals.

Homelessness is a growing epidemic across the country. This terrible misfortune has led to many unsuspecting people leading impoverished lifestyles, and facing the horrific and heart-wrenching tragedy of abandonment. The purpose of this essay is to not only persuade the readers to get involved in ending homelessness on local and national efforts, but to embrace new and creative ways of helping to end this rapidly growing problem, by taking action to end this catastrophic situation. Also, I will demonstrate the causes and effects of the homeless resorting to violence, by using comparison and contrast to examine the views and standpoints on helping the forgotten, so that we might end this calamity once and for all. In an increasingly

Besides being the most responsible for addressing the problem, government officials also have the most to gain from a successful policy proposal. This is why government officials are also this proposal’s target audience. If the homeless population can be reduced or the issue completely resolved to the point where homelessness is no longer an issue, government officials would benefit greatly from the publicity of such success. City officials, given their responsibility, are thus both the key player and target audience for this policy analysis and proposal.

The DC government has been implementing Rapid Re-Housing programs in response to the homelessness crisis that the nation’s capital has been facing for years. The Rapid Re-Housing models were implemented across the country through the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program (HPRP), as part of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) of 2009 (Anderson, 2015). Rapid Re-Housing is mainly an intervention, informed by a Housing First approach. Housing First is a critical part of the community’s effective homeless crisis response system (Anderson, 2015). The program attempts to connect families and individuals experiencing homelessness to permanent housing through personalized programs of assistance that may include the use of limited-time

Homelessness is a serious issue that is looked down upon within my community. Many homeless die when it’s too hot, too cold, or too wet. The New Orleans Mission sees this a huge issue and argue that homeless people are real people who need real resources, like shelter, food, and clothes. In addition, they have found that, without supportive services, housing is often not enough to end homelessness. From helping homeless youth, to providing assistance in obtaining disability benefits, to providing transportation, to offering intensive job training assistance to homeless veterans. The New Orleans Mission operate a number of innovative

Imagine this, a family of four is trying to survive the night. They are lying on the ground in bitter temperatures with only a cardboard box and a blanket to shield themselves from the harsh nights that they are forced to endure. Men, women, and children wait for morning when the doors of the food shelter will finally open, providing many with their meal of the day. This is the setting for hundreds of families in the Phoenix area. It can happen to anyone, anytime. Sometimes it’s a result of circumstances beyond our control- job loss, eviction, domestic violence, mental illness, medical bills. Homelessness is a growing problem and I have a proposition to stop it. We must give homeless people permanent housing with no strings attached.

Homelessness is an aspect of society, which most people chose not to acknowledge. With the increasing amount of issues the United States faces, homelessness tends to be forgotten when the time comes for the government to establish what issues they should assist. Due to the substantial amount of issues the government concerns itself with, homelessness does not receive the necessary attention required and is improperly handled. In today’s society poverty-stricken individuals or families is too much of a common occurrence to be treated as lightly as it is. Additional government intervention is necessary in order to supply the needed resources, which can prevent the further spread of homelessness. The United States government is obligated to protect its citizens and should care about the constant growth of homelessness. Through economic policies and community advertisements, the government can control the issue of individuals who are facing poverty.

A final important issue that Boston struggles with, like many cities, is homelessness. Throughout Walsh’s time as mayor, he has aimed to end this for the city and to implement programs for those who are living on the streets to get basic care. In the past, he has housed over one thousand homeless people, launched the Southampton Street shelter, even appointed Sheila Dillon as Housing Chief. Although it was a controversial act, Walsh also closed the Long Island bridge and tore down the housing

The paper discusses Mayor's Schell's zero homeless family pledge. Mayor Schell was determined to eliminate the homelessness in Seattle when he became the mayor in 1998, to achieve his mission he and his team came up with some strategies and restructuring which are discussed in the paper.

Homelessness in Seattle has proven to be a tremendous issue. Fighting for years, Seattle has not been able to make any significant improvements when it comes to homelessness. Although eliminating homelessness may seem to have a simple solution, more housing, the causes of homelessness determine how difficult eliminating it will be. Seattle’s homelessness stems from many complex issues that can be traced back many years. One of the most significant causes of homelessness in Seattle is cuts in funding towards low-income housing combined with raised rent prices in both previously affordable housing and housing geared towards the affluent.

The bigger an issue, the more likely it is to be ignored because then people are able to blame the size of the issue. In 2015, a study found that over 500,000 people were homeless in the United States. At this point, major cities were beginning to declare homelessness an emergency situation, yet majorly successful solutions remained few and far between. In Kozol’s book. he writes about how common it is for the government to look the other way or to choose the option based on what will cost the government the least or what is more beneficial for the government, rather than what is best for the schools. “... the districts that face the toughest challenges are also likely to be those that have the fewest funds to meet their children’s needs” (Source G, 56). It is important to recognize that the book is written based off of Kozol’s experiences in the late twentieth century, meaning that the specifics of the situations may differ in present day but the basic themes and issues remain. In Source B, Lloyd Pendleton discusses how the Housing First system helped to decrease chronic homelessness in Utah by 91%. In Source E, Richard J. Berry, the mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico, describes how he helped create

New Hope Housing addresses several areas of the McKinsey framework for capacity. Specially, strategy, staff and leadership, funding, and advocacy are addressed within their plan. Although it is interesting, the infrastructure was not thoroughly discussed within their plan, that would need evaluated to address the additional programs and initiatives they seek to accomplish.

In the early 2000s—after a 15-year push to create emergency shelters for the burgeoning homeless population in U.S. cities—shelter funding began to decline, nationwide.    For  Pine  Street  Inn,  Boston’s  foremost  homeless

DC’s Mayor Muriel Bowser is very committed to “ending long-term homelessness in the District of Columbia”. The mayor and her team believe that the administration’s plan for homelessness is ambitious but achievable. The plan aims at cultivating partnerships with non-profit providers, advocates, persons experiencing homelessness, business partners, and the philanthropic community to develop ways and methods to manage and resolve homelessness in the nation’s capital. Another key actor that is involved in resolving DC’s homelessness is the District of Columbia Interagency Council on Homelessness (DCICH). The DCICH is a group of cabinet level leaders, providers of homeless services, advocates, homeless and formerly homeless leaders that come together to inform and guide the District’s strategies and policies for meeting the needs of individuals and families who are homeless or at imminent risk of becoming homeless. The DCICH main mission is to “to end long-term homelessness in the District of Columbia by 2020”.

Homelessness has always been a major social issue for cities across the nation but in recent years it is reached astonishing proportions. In this essay I will try to summarize ten recently published articles and each of the authors view of homelessness. First I will discuss some of their opinions of the causes of the recent increase of homelessness and who or what is to blame. Next we will look into just a few of the effects of homelessness, both to the homeless and those around them. After that we will explore possible solutions that have been tried or proposed.