Ashanti Jamieson
Urban Economics
Professor Dolar
December 17, 2019
Urban Policy Paper
In a various amount of areas, you can find many issues to be ongoing and have yet to be solved completely by government assistance. This can be seen in project housing issues and pollution. In heavily populated places like New York City there are urban issues such as high crime rates, poor public housing, and high drug exchanges. In the area of New York, one of the many constant problems is homelessness. In the city it is not a surprise to find a homeless man, woman or family sitting against a building, begging commuters or travelers for money on a street corner, at a bus stop or a train station. Homelessness can happen to anyone of any gender, race, age, and socioeconomic background. Homelessness has been a problem for many years, but numbers have risen especially high within the last ten years. Politicians and state representatives have made efforts to help the urban issue. Due to prices for housing going up and the scarcity of jobs it makes it difficult for people to not only hold on to a job, but to also afford their homes.
Homelessness has been an ongoing problem since the Great Depression, but with a decline in the economy homelessness has increased within the decade. Today, New York city family shelters are at capacity. “Over sixty thousand men, women, and children spend their nights in shelters on a regular basis. Another five hundred families crowd into the Department of Homeless Services' Emergency Assistance Unit each evening awaiting placement in a shelter. Sometimes, their wait can be days or even weeks” (Nunez). The lines for shelters can sometimes be the length of miles, especially around the cold winter months.
For some people, being homeless is a result from the loss of their job, substance abuse from drugs and alcohol and others it is a result from growing up in a negative household environment or from a previous experience of being homeless. “Although most families are homeless for a relatively short time, a substantial proportion of the population of homeless families are homeless for years” (Lewit & Baker). This goes to show that a majority of people who do become homeless have been found to be in these situations for a long span of time, because it takes a while for them to get back on their feet if they ever do. “Just in October of 2018 there were 63,559 homeless people including 15,572 homeless families with 23,136 homeless children sleeping each night in the New York City municipal shelter system. Families alone make up three- quarters of the homeless shelter populating in New York” (Coalition organization). This shows how many families and individuals were reported to have been homeless in the city in the year 2018. Although, these numbers are high they are even higher as the years go on.
Some may ask why is homelessness still an issue in the year 2019. Well for one to become homeless there are many negative factors in their lives that could have occurred to result in them living out on the streets or in shelters. For some they may have hit hard times in their life where they could not afford to stay in their apartment buildings or pay for their mortgages, which result in being evicted. Some people may have grown up homeless so they were already accustomed to that way of life. According to the book “The Homeless” by Christopher Jencks, he states “the spread of homelessness among single adults was a byproduct of five related changes: the elimination of involuntary commitment, the eviction of mental hospital patients who had nowhere to go, the advent of crack, increases in long-term joblessness, and political restrictions in the creation of flophouses” (Jencks, 103). Among families, three factors appear to have been important: the spread of single motherhood, the erosion of welfare recipients’ purchasing power, and perhaps crack. In some cases being homeless means that the person has no way of obtaining food, clean drinking water or even a way of bathing themselves. But, there are some homeless people that may not appear to have the “homeless look”. Homeless look meaning having shabby, torn clothing, and just not looking clean. Some homeless people may not have a home, but they make due with living out of their cars and could even possibly still be going to work to have some sort of income. In these instances they find places where they can bathe so they still look presentable to the public or while still going to work.
Since the lives of the homeless has been an ongoing issue, one may ask what are policy makers doing to end this issue. In the past decade, Republicans and Democrats alike have backed a comprehensive approach to ending homelessness. The consistent federal investment, evidence-based guidance from federal agencies, and continuous innovation by communities have produced significant results. Currently there is a policy known as “HHS” from the Department of Health and Human Services, within the United States, which is the government’s principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and delivering the necessities of human services. The government has created an entire section dedicated to people who have fallen off their feet known as, The U.S Interagency Council on Homelessness or the USICH, which coordinates the Federal response to homelessness by partnering with multiple Federal agencies, local and state governments, service providers as well as actual people experiencing homelessness to achieve the Federal goal of preventing and putting an end to homelessness (End Homeless organization). This government policy has helped to improve the homeless community by involving the local governments to provide the services they need to get back on their feet.
After watching a video, provided by the New York City Department of Homeless Services they state that they have “Safe Haven” programs. The purpose of Safe Havens is to provide those experiencing street homelessness with the services and settings they need to get back on their feet. These programs have a team of outreach members that work with the individuals to find out what they are most in need of, finding out where they are at socially and economically. This department also provides each client with motivational interviews, therapeutic groups and counselling on how to apply for state benefit programs as well as applying for housing so they do not end up back on the streets. Not only are policy makers trying to make a difference and create an effective change so are the communities. This past summer, there was a “NYC street clinic for people experiencing homelessness and their pets”. This street clinic gave people who were homeless and their pets a place to go to for free of charge services such as veterinary care, basic human medical care, pet supplies and human supplies. This was sponsored by humanitarian and animal organizations such as the ASPCA for one.
Another way communities have been helping is through soup kitchens most times hosted by members of one or more churches. These churches will accept contributions of food, donations of money to help supply the food and volunteers to help serve the food to the homeless that come visit. This has become a very popular and a great way to help those families or persons in need.
Although, there are government funded shelters and places funded by churches to give people who have hit hard times in their life a place to stay, there may not be enough for the whole population of homeless people and families or they may be hard to get into due to the long lines or the qualifications needed to earn a bed in those locations. Even though people in nearby neighborhoods may not want multiple shelters there I would suggest building more homeless shelters even if it meant having all of the shelters in one area just until those people got on their feet again. I think that it would be better than having homeless people walking around the streets, parking lots and bus stations begging for money. I personally think that it would be better than people finding places like nearby park benches, train stations or hospitals to sleep at.
I believe that it would also be beneficial for the people in the communities to help donate if not monetarily it could be with clothing and non-perishable foods that they could live off of for a period of time until they could possibly find a Safe Haven location or even to get into a shelter. Being that we are all part of the same community, people within the community should want to help people in the area and should take the initiative to do so. Also there should be a bigger announcement of beneficial services such as the Safe Haven programs as well as the street clinics that have offered and should be offered more frequently during the changing seasons being that people in the street are susceptible to the flu, virus’, infections and other diseases that need treatment.
In conclusion, although there are many urban issues in areas similar to New York City there should be plenty of policies in place to prevent them from occurring. From researching it does not seem like there are many policies that will beneficially help the homeless. Homelessness has been a popular topic since the Great Depression in the 1930s, but has since grown in population from a decline in jobs and the increase of rent and mortgages on citizens making it hard for them to obtain and have a place to call home. Being that New York City is known for being heavily populated and capital based there should never be a big abundance of homeless families and individuals that there are. Even if there are, I believe that there should be more than enough places for them to go that are funded by the government as well as government policies to help out these families and single adults during their time of need.