We need to create formal alternative housing solutions, rather than simply insisting that one house can only equal one family. These questions were raised during the meeting but are fundamentally too large to be easily answered in one session. Perhaps the place for them to be more thoroughly explored would be at a conference or public forum. Focusing solely on welfare recipients alone, however, is too narrow. A key component of the entire picture is low income versus the high cost of housing.
People involved in low wage work or renumeration in general are our target population.
As we moved from a consideration of the problems involved in housing and low income to pondering their solutions, we realized that we were moving from research into advocacy. Larry Bailis reported that work continues on the Welfare Forum's mail survey. Unfortunately, mail surveys will not reach those people who are homeless and also caters to those who are better educated and comfortable with the idea of filling out forms. Planned focus groups should moderate this bias somewhat. Attendees at the meeting worried that the length makes it unlikely that many will finish filling it out.