WHAT ABOUT US?
By: Bobbi Allen-Keys & Madison Ford-Mcknight
The New Divine Lorraine Hotel
The Divine Lorraine Hotel was a building that underwent $44 million worth of renovations since May 2016. The famous apartments later turned into a hotel was originally built by Willis G. Hale between 1892-94 .
This building took a lot of time and money, but the real question is why couldn’t the city do something with this historic building that would’ve been beneficial? This beautiful landmark was turned into something that not only increased prices up in this specific neighborhood but continued to push homeless people into other areas of Philadelphia. What can we do to change this epidemic?
This issue is increasing the amount of homelessness in Philadelphia. The solution that we will try to focus on is turning the abandoned buildings around the city into affordable housing for the homeless. There are roughly 1,000 street homeless, about 5,000 people living somewhere in the homelessness system and 15,000 who experience homelessness. Project home explains the causes of homelessness in Philadelphia; the top 3 were Lack of jobs at competitive wages, Housing costs and inadequate housing assistance. There are only 41 affordable housing units for every 100 extremely low income households. In Philadelphia, a person would have to work 106 hours per week at the minimum wage 7.25 to be able to even afford a one bedroom apartment. The poverty rate for Philadelphia has a 25.7% poverty rate which is the highest in the nation. So there isn't affordable housing at all, and the housing that is available requires extreme amount of work hours on a minimum wage salary, which leads to higher poverty rates, which adds to the homelessness rates because people can’t keep up.
How can we end this problem?
Similarly to other states, we could use abandoned building to make affordable housing for low income families. Also helping find jobs for everyone. In order to pay for housing and other necessities you need to have money. Many people do not make enough money to feed themselves, a family nor rent. This does not include clothing or other things that are primarily needed for living. A group called Simple Way that helps renovate homes for people who are less fortunate. They purchase and renovate abandoned house for family to live in. They provide affordable housing and homeownership to families who are in need. They help teach people about what it takes to own a home. They are able to do this through donations and volunteer services.
In an interview we did with Kyle Barger; the Co-Founder of Make a Day he helped us realize that its not about what you do to help the community, it's about the fact that you did it at all. The Make A Day foundation is all about giving back to their community. They volunteer services every 6-8 to help feed and provide clothing and hair cuts to the homeless.
Let's make a change
Philadelphia should implement this project mainly because we can start to solve three parts to a large problem. Homelessness, housing costs and poverty rates. If we can get the city to start this project, we can potentially save many lives. The actions that need to be taken is focusing on one area first, looking at those buildings and understanding the amount of time and money that will go to improve the buildings. We have to be advocates for the people that don’t have the voice or ability to do so for themselves. If we keep turning these buildings into expensive lofts or housing for college students, the rates shown above will become even higher over the next few years.