Solutions to the Problem of Homelessness

Many people become homeless due to the fallout from a physical illness or injury. The exorbitant cost of health care and the predatory practices of health insurance companies, medical debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy. It is also a major reason people become homeless.

This problem could probably be partially solved with health care reform, preferably a single payer system. But that doesn't cover everything. People who are ill or injured often become unable to work and require help. This help might come from friends or family or from government funded programs. It needs to be made absolutely unacceptable for sick people to become homeless due to inability to work. Some sort of safety net needs to be created for people who do not have caring friends or family.

People with developmental disorders and mental illnesses often become homeless due to lack of a family and friend support structure and lack of treatment for their problems.

It needs to be made just as socially unacceptable to abandon friends and family members due to their mental illness or developmental disorders as it currently is to abandon them due to physical ailments.

There is a stigma to mental illness in America which is simply ridiculous. It leads people to ignore or put down people suffering from mental illnesses and disorders, even their own children. We could help fight the problem of homelessness by raising awareness about mental illness and developmental disorders. Once people no longer blame or shun people with those illnesses they will be more able to be supportive towards friends and family members with mental illnesses or developmental disabilities.

As an extension of that societal change, developmental disorders such as autism and ADD and treatment for mental illnesses such as depression, PTSD, phobias, and others would need to be automatically treated by professionals. The attitude that mental and developmental disorders are imaginary (or signs of character flaws, sin, or bad parenting) needs to be dispensed with so people suffering them can get well and take care of themselves whenever possible.

So much suffering, including instances of homelessness, could be prevented by giving people the mental and emotional care they need to be well.

Many teens and young adults lose their homes when their parents' religious beliefs come into conflict with their own beliefs, actions, or sexuality.

This is a very sticky problem to address as very, very few people will even admit the role that religious beliefs play in causing teen homelessness. The only answer I can think of is outreach to fundamentalist groups. Perhaps if they were educated about what happens to teens after they are kicked out for changing religions or being homosexual they might temper their responses to those perceived threats to their religion?

If society at large is made aware of this cause of teen homelessness by talking about this almost taboo subject then society at large can put pressure on parents to provide for and not abuse their minor children regardless of their beliefs or sexual orientation. This pressure could take the form of simple peer pressure or even creating and enforcing legislation creating stiffer laws against child abandonment and abuse.

Many people become homeless due to sexual, physical, or emotional abuse.

I think that homelessness due to sexual, physical, and emotional abuse could be reduced by providing mental health care to at risk parents and children which could be used without stigma attached.

I think runaways due to abuse could be greatly reduced if all children were made aware of programs designed to rescue abused children and provided with the ability to easily contact those agencies for help. Many teens run away from abusive homes instead of seeking help simply because they don't know how to seek help or sometimes they don't even know what help is available.

Adults should be made aware of programs designed to help them cope with abusive partners as well. Awareness is important if people are to seek help

Many homeless people work for minimum wage and they just don't earn enough to afford shelter.

Minimum wages need to be realistic. A minimum wage based on actual minimum living expenses would go a long way towards solving this problem.

Many people are kept at part time because their employers can't afford to provide insurance benefits that they are required to provide for full time employees. So my partial solution to this cause of homelessness is once again, healthcare reform, preferably a single payer system. This would reduce employer costs greatly and they'd then only need to worry about wages - even workman's comp would be reduced as they would no longer have to pay for workplace injuries.

As far as unemployment goes, I think that the economy would slowly but surely benefit from greater health care availability which will lead to new employment opportunities.

A relatively recent problem associated with unemployment is the practice of credit checks for hiring purposes unrelated to cash handling or finance positions. These practices make it almost impossible for someone who has gotten behind on their bills to get hired - the bills they are behind on because they are unemployed! So making these practices illegal other than when hiring for cash handling or finance positions would help unemployed people have fewer barriers to employment.

A few people have asked me "if homelessness has affected you so deeply, why don't you donate your lens earnings to charities that fight homelessness?"

I would love to donate the proceeds of this lens and all of my others to help homeless people. Unfortunately, I'm on the very edge of homelessness myself.

You can read about why I'm in financial difficulty here.
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