How We Can Help Stop Homelessness in Communities
In the U.S., the rate of homelessness has gone up by 12% throughout 2020 and 2023, which is an increase of about 650,000 people. This is mainly because housing over the past few years has become increasingly unaffordable, which causes a huge issue for the economy and for access to health care.
In 2019, COVID-19 struck many lives from a wide range of financial instability to people ending up on the streets. Because of the pandemic, homelessness has increased and our community must realize how we can help stop it by making housing affordable for everyone.
“We must expand housing and make it more affordable for all Americans, and we must scale services to help people stay housed so that they are available to everyone who needs them,” Jeff Olivet, an executive director of USICH, stated in an email.
The first big step to conquering homelessness is to ensure that homes can be affordable for those with low incomes and minimum wage. To help with that, policymakers must call for the creation of a targeted renters’ tax credit to help families keep more of their incomes for many essentials like food, medicine, education, and transportation.
“To end homelessness throughout the country, our nation must expand investments to make homes affordable for those with low incomes, assisting them with every resource they have available,” Sarah Saadian, a senior vice president of Public Policy and Field Organizing, said in an email.
Programs and shelters in communities can also make a huge impact on helping people off the streets, allowing them to have a place to stay at night and allowing them to work in the day. With this routine, slowly but surely, we can help people stay off the streets for the time being. This will allow people to be able to build themselves up from wherever they’re standing.
“We can also create a National Housing Stabilization Fund, a new program to help prevent evictions and homelessness throughout the country. This program will assist anyone in need, especially during a financial crisis and to help provide temporary assistance to cover rent,” Saadian mentioned.
For many places offering jobs, they can increase employment throughout the country by reducing prices, increasing employee wages, buying more supplies, and hiring more workers directly. This will allow not just some, but many people to find jobs fairly easily around the state, in addition to the shelters they can stay at during their hours off.
“As a community, we have to expand the rate of people being able to get jobs throughout the world, since homelessness is the failure of systems and we have to address it, preventing people from losing homes in the first place, " Olivet added.
Inside of a community, there are many things you could do to help people in need as well. Whether it’s from giving homeless people opportunities to giving them the resources they need to allow themselves to get a job and a home, importantly. The community plays a big role in homeless peoples’ lives, but we have yet to realize it, since we could do so much more than give a few dollars. We could offer them simple jobs with a range of pay, refer them to local social service agencies or food banks, and provide everyday resources they need.
“I think we have to pull together as a community and utilize all our resources. As costs go up, we have to make sure that we’re giving people liveable wages because we’re expecting people to now meet the demons of so much, but they get so little,” Tyrone Neal, a counselor at Carver High School of Engineering and Science stated in an interview
However, resources aren’t the only solution. We can even offer them universal healthcare to make sure they have a full range of quality health services they need. Those who are unhoused have to choose between housing and food, but not their health. We need to ensure that healthcare is provided for everyone, since it has increasingly become more expensive.
“I think we just have to take a holistic look at our society, especially around the economy but also if these things fluctuate, how can you make these necessary adjustments so that people can adjust and be okay with these kinds of moves in our economy. So, I feel like those are the things that are most necessary, like pay, universal health care, and just making sure food is accessible for everyone,” Tyrone Neal added.
In addition to all of these adjustments that can be made, the most that could be done are what policymakers can do, which are to make funds that can provide the homeless with assistance during a financial crisis to ensure that they don’t end up losing their homes due to evictions or other cases that may lead to homelessness.
“We can also create a National Housing Stabilization Fund, a new program to help prevent evictions and homelessness throughout the country. This program will assist anyone in need, especially during a financial crisis and to help provide temporary assistance to cover rent,” Saadian added.