This is a good post, thank you.
(Unfortunately, the logic of resource allocation, whether it be in regard to homelessness, healthcare, education, etc, seems to pale in the face of people's perceptions of the world...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by livingminimal
I am the Executive Director of a homeless services Non-Profit. We've been ending homelessness for both individuals and families in our community for 44 years. We help hundreds of people with homelessness and thousands of people with hunger every year.
What you've said here, is what probably occupies 15-20% of my waking, working life: dispelling myths and stereotypes about homelessness. Chief among them is that substance abuse of mental illness are CAUSES of homelessness, when truthfully, addiction or someone's mental health issues, when not treated properly, are typically exacerbated by the trauma of homelessness significantly.
Rebecca's story is her own. It's important to remember that no two people have identical stories about how they started experiencing homelessness, but it is important to remember just how much economics, in particular the confluence between wages and the cost/availability of housing, is the root of both the cause and the solution to homelessness.
I can read a whole lot between the lines of that interview, but it would be speculative on my part, albeit fairly educated/informed by experience, but speculative nonetheless. Her story is her story.
Speaking from my professional experience, I'd offer a couple of things:
It is extremely expensive for us to have a homeless population. More expensive than it is to house them. If we subsidized Rebecca's rent indefinitely, it would cost less than the resource mechanisms shes participating in now, particularly around health care interactions.
Economic-driven homelessness is only going to get worse in the next economic downturn. If we dont satisfy the point above by finding a way to either jam more affordable housing down every neighborhood's throat, or ideally, bring back public housing...then you haven't seen **** yet in terms of what this problem is going to look like when another recession comes.
Not to turn this into a political debate - homelessness should be a non-partisan issue, but to solve it we need to completely rethink how/where/why we allocate resources.
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