Futures Friday: Current and Emerging Issues in Homelessness
By: Jt Mudge
Tags: Homeless, Homelessness, Futures Studies, Foresight

Futures Friday: Current and Emerging Issues in Homelessness

By now it should be clear that homelessness is a complicated topic. We’ve taken a brief look in past weeks at the current state of homelessness in California and how we got here. Today we are going to take a closer look at a few of the issues around homelessness and what some of the different view points are.

Understanding the current issues provides a framework to look at multiple sides and opinions of this crisis. While I could write a book on all of the questions surrounding how to deal with homelessness, today we are going to look at three; Subsidies, Employment, and Tent Cities.

Should the state of CA offer a “Rent Burden Subsidy” to counter the rapid rise in rents and cost of living in order to offset the increase in homelessness?

How many of us have ever been worried that we were not going to make rent? Even if you have not been in that situation, days away from eviction, you can imagine the stress and burden that creates. Many people have experienced living on the brink at some point in their lives only to find some way to scrape by. But what if you were to find yourself homeless? What would you do?

When you are homed you have a different set of opportunities than when you are homeless. Keeping a roof over your head is a lot easier than finding one once you have lost it.

Programs like Rent Burden Subsidies keep people homed while they work on improving their situation. Countries like Finland have seen massive success in their Housing First approaches. However, not everyone agrees that this policy is effective or would even work in many U.S. cities. Others go further and claim that effective or not, it is not fair to subsidize someone else’s rent with tax payer’s dollars.

Fair or not, the question is also an economic one — is it more cost effective to pay to prevent homelessness than it is to treat the consequences of an un-homed population? This is not a simple question. Costs associated with homeless such as law enforcement, social programs, homeless shelters, loss of business revenue and tourism dollars, and the social costs that affect the community must all be considered.

It is no surprise that loosing a place to live makes it much more difficult to get back on your feet. Homeless people often suffer greater health issues and of course loose the ability to get a good night sleep and the resources to find a job. But what happens when they do find a job?

Read more: The Homeless Policy Research Institute’s report on “Rent Burden Housing Subsidy in California”

Should I as a business owner/manager hire a homeless person?

This a tough question and of course an even tougher answer. Many people feel comfortable providing a donation or maybe even volunteering in a soup kitchen, but when it comes to hiring the homeless, there is a stigma that is hard to dispel.

A common view around homeless individuals is that they should just “get a job.” However, how many of the people with that viewpoint would hire that homeless person at their company, even if the person proved to be drug free? And what about the homeless population with a criminal record (regardless of the crime)?

Many homeless people want to work. Without employment it is difficult to escape chronic homelessness, and without a home it is near impossible to find steady employment.

But what about the business owner? Are they putting themselves, their employees, and their business at risk by employing a homeless person? Even if the job candidate is drug free and honest, business owners may fear that the person may not be dependable. This is not an easy concern to dismiss and one reason the stigma remains.

Read more: The Homeless Policy Research Institute’s report on “Homelessness and Employment”

Where should the homeless be homeless?

This issue is one that seems impossible to solve and is reaching a boiling point in California. Where do the homeless live? As homelessness rises, so do homeless communities such as “tent cities” — encampments with semi-permanent residences made of tents, tarps, vehicles, and other shelters.

These communities vary in many ways, from size and permanence, to location and makeup. Some may be relatively friendly while others may be areas of increased crime including drugs and prostitution.

Understandably some citizens feel threatened and have had enough. Others see this as another sign of our failing society and growing gap between the wealthy and poor.

The increase in homeless has led to an increase in homeless visibility, crime, and confrontations. In some cities there have been violent backlashes against the homeless both in an effort to move them away from residences, schools, businesses, and public parks but also in frustration and a growing lack of empathy.

Read more: The NY Times article “As Homelessness Surges in California, So Does a Backlash”

Moving past the issues

If we do not provide subsidies to keep people homed, and we do not provide jobs to allow people to escape homelessness, and we do not allow people to provide their own shelters — what do we do?

As a futurist, the goal is not to provide an answer, at least not directly. It is to provide a way to take some sense of control over our destinies and hopefully work toward a preferred set of futures. However, as uncovering these issues shows, we may not all agree upon what the preferred futures should be.

Futurists strive to look at the historical and current state of affairs, both in the domain topic (in this case homelessness) and the world at large, then use that information to look at how things might progress many years into the future.

Researching crises like homelessness or global warming make it difficult because often we want to stop and work on the solution. We want to “fix” the issues. Without a clear understanding of where we are heading though, these fixes are more often band-aids and are not resilient enough to hold up to the test of time. We must resist jumping to the solution and create a solid framework of ideas and innovation based on research and data to create a solid future.

To the future

Next week we will move into the future and look at some of the proposed plans in California communities to tackle this crisis. Then we will look more in depth at what is driving our futures.