As a New Yorker, I come in contact with homlessness everyday, so much so that I often fail to recognize and pay attention to the complexity of the issue that is right in front of me. In an attempt to step outside this bubble and hear the perspective of someone who is actually struggling with homelesness, I decided to interview a man named Kevin in his 50s who has been homeless for most of his life (this interview was done when I went back home for Thanksgiving break. When asked about what the hardest part about being homeless is for him, Kevin said he doesn’t feel safe, especially now during the pandemic, since shelters are overcrowded, and it’s also too cold to stay on the streets. He has been in and out of shelters for years and they didn’t provide any stability for him. He said that shelters are always overcrowded and that fights often break out while the people running the shelters are not trained well enough to prevent it.
In order to further explore this issue and get different perspectives on it, I listened to the podcast Planet Money: “Counting the Homeless” and a part that really stood out to me was a study done by Dennis Culhane, a professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania. In order to find out whether paying rent for the chronically homeless and giving them housing assistance or keeping things how they are and letting them stay homeless costs more, Dennis followed 10,000 people who were chronically homeless over eight years. After adding up their jail and shelter and hospital stays, he found that the money could have solved the problem and gone toward paying their rent and getting them off the street. A study such as this one has been replicated dozens of times and each time it shows that it costs about as much to house people who are chronically homeless as it does to not house them. I emailed Professor Culhane with a list of questions that would give me more insight into his research and study which I included below.
With the information gathered from these two interviews and the research I have done on why homelessness is so prevalent in New York City I emailed the mayor of the city Bill De Blasio:
Dear Mayor De Blasio,
My name is Ksenija Stokuca and I am a student at the University of Southern California currently doing a project on homelessness in NYC where I grew up. At this moment, the number of New Yorkers who are experiencing homelessness is higher than it has ever been before, nearly 80,000 men, women, and children. This past year, an already raging homelessness crisis was made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic which put more than 50,000 people at risk of eviction. Homelessness has always been a huge problem in the city as we come face to face with it everyday but now more than ever change needs to be made in the way NYC deals with it.
I am aware that the city has a right to shelter law, meaning that it is legally obligated to find a bed for every person who needs one meaning that even if the shelters are full, people cannot be turned away so the city rents blocks of hotel rooms and even entire hotels, just for the homeless. However, multiple studies have shown that paying rent for the chronically homeless and giving them housing assistance is much more effective in creating permanent improvement while also being cheaper than providing temporary housing and putting them in shelters or simply letting them stay homeless. One of the questions I have is why is New York City not investing more into homeless services and permanent housing with the goal of ending chronic homelessness? Last year, New York City spent 364 million dollars paying for hotels as shelters and even more for traditional shelters. Why is the city resorting to hotels for housing when providing permanent housing is both cheaper and more humane?
Most people who are homeless simply need a little bit of help for a little bit of time before they get back on their feet. However, there is a small group of people who will be homeless for years and maybe even forever because they are struggling with addiction and mental health issues, the chronically homeless. In both cases, providing permanent housing, mental health and addiction services, and job opportunities are necessary steps in giving homeless people an actual opportunity to get off the street and begin a new life. I hope that you can take the time to answer my questions and read through my suggestions as I think that they make a valuable point.
Best Regards,
Ksenija Stokuca
file:///private/var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/26A4859D-4716–4151–9F45-EDD1988612D4/tmp/NSIRD_Sprachmemos_0visHF/Neue%20Aufnahme%206.m4a
