Putting an End to Homelessness

Growing up in Los Angeles, seeing homeless people out and about became a part of everyday life. Since homeless people were so common, homelessness, to me, became normalized, and as a result, I failed to realize how serious the issue actually was, and still is. It wasn’t until one day that I went to downtown Los Angeles and drove through Skid Row that I came face to face with the harsh reality of homelessness. To this day, I can recall that day as if it were just yesterday. I was blown away by the sheer amount of people living on the streets, not to mention, the hundreds of tents lined up in rows from one end of the block to the other. After seeing such things, I could only ask myself two questions: Why is homelessness this bad, and why isn’t anything being done to put an end to it?

As I’ve come to learn, homelessness is a global issue. People from all over the world are forced to live on the streets as a direct result of a lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, mental illness, substance abuse, etc… According to Yale Global, “no less than 150 million people, or about [two] percent of the world’s population, are homeless.” Of those 150 million people, forty-one thousand reside in Los Angeles, California (New York Times). Despite concentrated efforts to get the homeless off the streets, into homes, and back into society, the number continues to rise. Thus, begging the question, why?

To put things into perspective, Los Angeles is the second most populated city in the United States, boasting a population of around four million people (US Census). As mentioned before, forty-one thousand of them are homeless (LAHSA). That’s roughly one percent of the population! Crazy right? Especially since putting an end to homelessness seems simple, just give homes to those that are homeless. Unfortunately, as I’ve come to learn, it’s not that easy. Giving homes to the homeless means building homes which means finding a place to build said homes. Oftentimes, that “place” is someone’s “backyard.” Los Angeles residents who oppose the construction of supportive housing projects have very little to say besides that “they’ll wreak havoc on the community.” I don’t believe that this justifies not wanting supportive housing. I believe that supportive housing is necessary because it provides a foundation from which a homeless person can access the services and supports he/she needs to get his/her life back on track.

However, it’s important to note which types of supportive housing are most effective in keeping homeless people off the streets. Temporary shelters, for example, do exactly what the name says, temporarily house individuals. This is great and all but when it comes to providing effective services and supports that homeless people need in order to achieve a stable life, temporary shelters don’t do a great job. Temporary shelters lack “supports like childcare subsidies and transportation assistance” (NCH), which are essential for most homeless people. Think of it like this. Giving a homeless person temporary shelter is like giving an elderly person an iPhone. In other words, giving a homeless person temporary shelter obviously helps them by providing them with shelter, but it doesn’t help them with other things like social integration. Just like giving an elderly person an iPhone, I’m sure he/she would appreciate it but even then, it would still be difficult for them to adapt to something so new. In essence, temporary shelters relieve the homeless of the stresses and dangers that come with living on the streets but it fails to address other things adequately, like social integration. Thus, temporary shelters only offer a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

This is where permanent supportive housing (PSH) comes into play. PSH provides “affordable housing and supportive services [to] unstably housed and socially marginalized [individuals]” (Harris, et al.). The key here is social integration. Social integration is important because it allows homeless people to live just like everyone else, with the same choices and opportunities for neighborhood-based social interactions. In other words, social integration curates a sense of belonging through emotional and practical support, which in turn enables homeless people to achieve and maintain peaceful social relations. This is important because by showing that they can be like everyone else, their community will be more inclined to help them, perhaps in the form of supporting the construction of PSH in their area.

Not to mention, PSH is based on a “housing first” approach, which is a recovery-oriented model that provides housing for homeless people as quickly as possible, then provides them with services and supports to aid in their transition to more permanent housing (NAEH). The approach is very effective, with studies showing that PSH has a long-term retention rate of up to 98 percent (NAEH). So what does this all mean? It means that homeless people who are helped by the housing first approach stay out of homelessness.

Of course, there will always be people who will oppose the presence of supportive housing in their area. Again, those people will say it’s because “it’ll wreak havoc on the community,” but in reality, it’s because they don’t agree with the disconnection between effort and reward. Breaking the connection between effort and reward is how the government justifies the redistribution of private property and anything else that one person has but another doesn’t (Shelly). This is how “[someone] who stays in school, doesn’t do drugs, works hard for years and eventually earns a good salary can be taxed to the max to help the ‘less fortunate,’ while a person who makes horrendous life choices acquires a right to receive government checks” (Shelly). The reason I bring this up is that Los Angeles city officials have pushed a housing-first policy via a tax increase “that is supposed to build 10,000 units of supportive housing for the homeless with a 1.2 billion dollar bond paid for by property owners” (Shelly). Thus, hardworking homeowners who are probably still paying off their houses are now going to be paying more for homeless shelters that they believe pose little to no benefit to them.

Understandably, it’s okay for many Los Angeles residents to be frustrated with the way homelessness has been handled by the city. As mentioned before, Los Angeles has invested “1.2 billion dollars in voter-approved bonds for subsidized apartments and [emergency shelter programs]” (Chandler), yet the problem continues to get worse. Thus, begging the question, what are we doing wrong? Or rather, what can we do better? From a practical standpoint, Los Angeles is doing everything it can without drastically affecting its economy. For instance, the number one cause of homelessness in Los Angeles, and anywhere in the world for that matter, is the lack of affordable housing. Lack of affordable housing isn’t something you can fix overnight. Then again, neither is homelessness. So what do we do? Do we spend months, maybe years, trying to pass policies and legislation that provide affordable housing, or do we provide PSH based on a housing-first approach? One solution is much more effective and can be implemented more quickly than the other. Can you guess which one? PSH! Again, I bring this up to show that although Los Angeles is spending millions of dollars on supportive housing, a proven solution to homelessness, it continues to get worse. Why? To answer this question and hopefully solve the issue, let’s take a look at how our neighbors across the world are handling it, specifically Finland.

In Finland, the number of homeless people has greatly decreased ever since their implementation of a housing-first approach. In fact, Finland is the only country in Europe where the number of homeless people continues to decline. Shockingly enough, “four out of five people… make their way back into a stable life” (Kontrast et al.). That’s an 80 percent success rate! What makes the Finnish model stand out from other housing-first models is that they really do mean housing first in Finland. Housing is seen as a basic human right meaning that it’s prioritized above all other things. The idea is that a homeless person needs a stable home before they can begin to tackle other issues in their life. Furthermore, “support is tailored more individually around the needs of the resident, and this is made possible due to the higher standard of public social services” (Malinen). So what does this mean? It means that homeless people are seen as equals and not as “someone with a problem.” This is important because recognizing the needs and wants of a homeless person is crucial to being able to help them effectively. Some homeless people “prefer an independent flat in scattered housing [while] others prefer living in their own rental flats in a more communal structure with in-house support” (Kaakinen). Most people think that a homeless person would be grateful for any type of housing, but again, that’s where most people go wrong. As mentioned before, a homeless person needs a stable home before they can begin to tackle other issues in their life. Therefore, it’s wrong to assume anything, especially in cases like these where one wrong move could potentially reset months, even years, worth of progress.

This idea that all homeless people are the same is especially evident in the “staircase model.” With the staircase model, a homeless person starts at the bottom and works their way up to become “housing ready.” Some homeless people make it to the top while others don’t; those who don’t end up right where they began, the streets. As you can see here, the staircase model is nowhere near as effective as housing first. More specifically, the staircase model struggled to help people “with high support needs who were experiencing long term homelessness” (Marybeth). Again, this is because the staircase model is built upon the “presumption that each homeless person has broadly the same characteristics and that they have to be required to reorient themselves and/or comply with treatment in set ways” (Pleace). There’s a reason Finland stopped using the staircase model and why the countries that still do see no decline in homelessness. Well if that’s the case then why don’t all countries adopt Finland’s housing-first approach?

To put it simply, implementing Finland’s housing-first approach is not cheap nor resource friendly. The first step is to greatly expand the amount of public housing available. Oftentimes, this is taken care of by non-government organizations (NGOs) who buy the homes and give them back to the municipalities. The municipalities then take care of distributing those homes to the homeless via rental contracts. The second step is of course providing PSH and social services to the homeless. In essence, the whole process is a “cooperation between the state, city councils and third sector organizations” (Malinen). This may seem like a lot of work, and it is, but studies actually show that housing the homeless is the most cost-effective way of helping them (Yglesias). This is because living on the streets usually entails emergency hospital visits as well as frequent arrests. Not only that but “scientific evaluations” of Finland’s housing-first approach showed that “the cost savings for the society are at least 15,000 euros (18,000 dollars) per one person per one year” (CBC). This alone is indicative of the fact that when executed properly, housing first has proven itself to be a cost-effective solution to homelessness. Therefore, it makes more sense to start investing in it as soon as possible, as opposed to wasting time and resources on short-term solutions that do nothing for the homeless in the long run.

With that being said, the big question now is, can Los Angeles replicate Finland’s success? I think so. As a matter of fact, Los Angeles is already well on its way to do so. Currently, there is a five-year-long program in progress called the “25 by 25”, which sets Los Angeles on a path to build 25,000 housing units by the year 2025 (Hayes). The program “is a wide-ranging embrace of multiple housing policies… that includes using prefabricated housing units or repurposing old apartment buildings” (Solis). In essence, the “25 by 25” is all about building/creating homes for the homeless. That takes care of the first step which was to greatly expand the amount of public housing available. All that’s left to do is provide effective PSH and social services to the homeless. Easier said than done right? Here’s the catch. Finland spent “270 million euros (325 thousand dollars) on the construction, purchase, and renovation of housing as part of their housing first approach” (Kaakinen), over the course of 10 years! Los Angeles has invested 1.2 billion dollars, in one year! How is it that Los Angeles has roughly three times Finland’s budget and yet homelessness keeps getting worse? This shows that money isn’t the problem when it comes to solving homelessness. So then what is? The answer to this question is quite simple actually. Quality. As we saw from Finland, it’s not so much about the amount of housing you provide but rather, the quality of the services you provide with said housing. Once Los Angeles recognizes this, only then will homelessness start to decline.

Albeit, Los Angeles’ homeless problem is much worse than Finland’s. This may be why Los Angeles isn’t too keen on providing top-tier services to its homeless population. As we’ve seen in the past, Los Angeles prefers short-term solutions in the form of temporary shelters as opposed to long-term ones like PSH based on a housing-first approach. At the end of the day, alleviating the homeless problem is all that matters right? Wrong! It won’t matter if that same homeless person is just going to end up on the streets again. Things need to change. Luckily we’re starting to see that change. Recently, a judge ordered Los Angeles to find shelter for every homeless person living on Skid Row (The Guardian). The hard part isn’t finding shelter for all these people, it’s keeping these people off the streets. Therefore, this motion serves as a sort of a “wake-up call” for Los Angeles seeing as how they’re going to have to think of a new approach; one that offers a more permanent solution to homelessness.

In conclusion, to change the world, you have to change the way people think. When it comes to homelessness, there is this notion that all homeless people are criminals or addicts with no intentions of getting their life back on track. However, if we want to put a serious dent in homelessness we have to put these thoughts aside and look towards the future. Why? Because homelessness impacts all of us, whether or not we are experiencing it ourselves. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you saw a homeless person? Probably the other day. Not to mention, homelessness can happen to anyone at any given time. For this very reason, it’s imperative that we get a grip on homelessness, to prevent it from getting any more out of control than it already is. Putting an end to homelessness locally is the first step in putting an end to it globally. We must first help ourselves before we can help others (as in other countries). As we just saw, PSH based on a housing-first approach is proven to be extremely effective. If Finland can do it, then so can we. At the end of the day, there will always be homeless people no matter what. Whether those homeless people set up camp on the sidewalk or at the park, with no hope of ever achieving a stable life, as opposed to designated supportive housing that will help them, is on us. Put yourself in their shoes, what would you want?

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