Homelessness is growing in record numbers across the globe. In London, the statistics have been estimated to be as high as 1 in 53 according to CNN news. New York in the East and other big cities like in the West of the United States have been particularly hard hit with soaring homeless populations in metropolises such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland. Often homeless are left with few options except shelters where they are provided with a cot and maybe a hot meal. Perhaps there could be another service model possible where people could live in comfort for the same service costs.
In the UK, “the surge in homelessness is is the result of a “perfect storm of spiraling rents, welfare cuts and a total lack of social housing,” Shelter charity’s Chief Executive Polly Neate said in a CNN article. In the US, the National Law Center says “that the top four causes of homelessness among unaccompanied individuals were lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, mental illness and the lack of needed services, and substance abuse and the lack of needed services.” Additional barriers are that some properties refuse to rent to people who receive benefits from the various Departments of Social Services provided by the government bodies tasked assisting these people to get off the streets.
Affordable and social housing are few and far between. While it is not possible to use the business of real estate to solve all of the challenges of people facing homelessness, there are solutions for the where the property values of housing have skyrocketed and lower and moderately paying don’t pay the rent. That solution could be co living. Shelters could almost be considered as a co living arrangement at its cheapest level. People live together and share space, however in most situations those spaces are less than ideal living. A new model to deal with the homeless population could be providing opportunities to reasonably prices co living arrangements where people could get access to services that are needed.
Co living encourages community which is what is fundamentally lacking in providing the care most of the people who are currently homeless need to set themselves back onto a road of recovery. Real estate market restructuring does not solve all the problems associated with mental health and substance abuse problems. However there is substantial evidence that living in community often does provide for a more positive, healthy environment and is more cost effective than individual housing. With aassio’s tokenization of real estate properties and the press towards co housing the tokens could create opportunities for honest employment within the aassio ecosystem between community members lending a helping hand to leading people into financial wealth and security.
Co living with a model like aassio makes owning a shared stake in a variety of properties easy and can provide as a backup investment specifically to provide for housing and related services in the case of an emergency. With the unique system of token payments between community members as trade people then have can create jobs for one another by trading skills. This trade in skills pushes us towards the development of alternative economic systems that can work fairly for everyone. Local trade between friends and neighbors is the most conductive to local development and in providing a true social security network. We all need one another in one way or another.
The aassio ecosystem can do more than help the homeless now. It can also provide stability in the future and act as a smart investment. If as children we decided to spend just a portion of our allowance in housing savings and shared real estate investment every week, by the time we became adults we could own a considerable share of property, and have a sufficient amount of tokens to trade for rent should the need arise. Thus aassio tokens can be used as something as an insurance against poverty and homelessness for the future. The Future Living society of aassio can be applied today and hedge the risk of tomorrow.
