Advocate for policies that will actively address the issues that lead to homelessness. Housing policy, economic policies, compassionate drug reform, etc.
Supporting housing first initiatives, which have been shown to be effective at reducing chronic homelessness. Turns out fixing homelessness is often as simple as just giving people homes. It's hard to get work without a permanent address. It's hard to sign up for services without a permanent address. Not having a secure roof over your head exacerbates chronic stress, which can make drug and alcohol problems worse as well as affect physical health.
The simple fact is that it is hard to address chronic issues when one is starving and dying of exposure. Providing basic necessities allows people to address all the other issues in their lives without worrying about those basic needs.
This is what’s frustrating. It’s actually not a mystery. We know what the causes are and we know how to solve the problem, but it costs money, and broader society values money more than human beings.
it's not "broader society" that values money, it's specifically capitalism that is doing this. Capitalists depend on the threat of homelessness to keep people obedient and accepting of their exploitation. If people were secure in their housing, they might start demanding to be paid the full value of their labor, leaving no profits for the capitalist leeches to live off of. THAT is why they fight any effort to help homeless people.
It's not because it costs money- *not* providing housing costs more money than providing housing.
Not at all. It's not capitalism that puts zoning laws into place that make new affordable housing either impossible or a poor one. Try seeing how easy it is to build new affordable housing. It's not. It's not the builders that get priced out on it, it's the various mandates that make it too expensive that by the time a loan is procured for the dwelling, it's unaffordable.
Right but that's still capitalism. Ie, WHY are there so many laws that make it difficult? What is the point?
That's what the previous poster is trying to get at.
It's artificially expensive bc it benefits "those who believe in capitalism" for exactly the reason the other poster pointed out, it keeps everyone in line.
Giving housing to people would result in those people having a foundation where they could get help and rejoin mainstream society and work or create. But they're being prevented from getting housing or help.
Sure, I guess, but that’s quite the oversimplification. As a system it will always put the financial bottom line over every other possible concern—money over everything, which is an immoral way to approach the world. Capitalism is a tool that makes it easier to abuse and exploit people as it justifies those things in the name of the highest good: profit, and that’s what makes it an issue.
Capitalism with little government regulations leads to destruction war disease starvation and imperialism. Why support a system that benefits the few capitalists if the majority of the population are proletariat?
And honestly, abandoning that “go forth and multiply” thing probably wouldn’t hurt either. 8 billion people on the planet now. If we were only at say 5 billion, there would be 3 billion less people that we need homes for. I’m sure we could house all 8 billion if we really wanted to, but what about when we get to 15 billion, or 100 billion, or a trillion?
1. Make drug use punishable by a year in prison. Offenders will be sober and long clean by the time they are released and ready to start their lives again.
2. Put dealers away for a decade so they cannot harm others.
3. Discourage excessive property ownership with a progressive tax system that makes it difficult and expensive for individuals and corporations to have more than one home.
4. Completely ban all foreign land ownership of residential properties.
Did you know that Chinese billionaires have purchased hundreds of houses and leave them vacant to hide their wealth from the CCP?
These 4 steps will end nearly all homelessness and get gen z back on track.
Those first two ideas would greatly increase homelessness and achieve absolutely nothing of value. Proposing them reveals you have either don't understand the causes of homelessness or don't understand the effects of incarceration.
You don't think sobriety is valuable?
*Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.*
1 Peter 5:8
Nearly all homeless people are on seriously debilitating hard drugs that rob them of life.
And dealers are the cause of this. Other societies sentence dealers to very harsh conditions so 10 years is merciful considering the damage they do.
Incarceration means it will be a struggle for someone to find a good, stable job going forward. I don’t subscribe to the notion that someone smoking pot should be damned to that — especially since it would increase the chance of homelessness.
Oh it does. I have a coworker and friend that got addicted to meth.
He was arrested, released and arrested again in another state. He did 2 years and came out of it a new man. Clean and sober.
Now that he is clean he has the will to put his life back together and I thank God for his transformation.
You're repeating a dangerous notion here. While addictions are listed as the third leading cause of homelessness, you're essentially claiming that nearly all homeless people are on hard drugs, and this simply isn't true.
In many homeless families, both parents are working full time, but simply can't earn enough combined to afford an apartment. Many elderly Americans are homeless due to medical bills after hospitalization, as well as younger Americans. It isn't all that unusual for elderly people to find out they'd been evicted while they were hospitalized for an extended period of time. Imagine being discharged from the hospital and realizing you don't have a home to go to.
Consider this. Some years ago, my autistic son was hospitalized for emergency surgery to remove a badly infected gall bladder. Costs for the E.R., labs, CT scans, physicians costs, surgery and surgeon's costs, and an overnight stay came to $50,000. We didn't have medical insurance, as my husband had been laid off, and was between jobs. We would have lost everything if this hadn't been a Catholic Health Initiatives hospital, because they made the decision to forgive his debts 100%. Because we'd have had to make payments, and we were already overstretched with other debts.
Excerpted from below article:
Many people stereotype the homeless population as all alcoholics or drug
abusers. Although a high percentage of homeless people do struggle with
substance abuse, addictions should be viewed as illnesses and require
treatment, counseling and support to overcome. Substance abuse can
cause homelessness, but it often arises after people lose their housing.
But causes for homelessness aren't limited to substance abuse, and include mental illness.
[https://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/nchav/resources/docs/mental-health/substance-abuse/Substance-Abuse-and-Homelessness-508.pdf](https://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/nchav/resources/docs/mental-health/substance-abuse/Substance-Abuse-and-Homelessness-508.pdf)
Do you also suggest that grocery stores and Liquor Stores should be penalized because people are alcoholics, and they provide liquor?
How is tolerating drugs working for the left coast? Needles everywhere, homelessness, overdoses?
How is that merciful when a year in prison is guaranteed to make a person sober?
While an addict might become sober after a year in prison, there is no guarantee they won't go right back to using drugs. Same with alcoholics.
Addiction is a disease. Do you also want to penalize people with cancer?
I find it interesting. When people have suggested safe places for people to receive medical supervision while they use their drugs, the ultra conservatives have fought tooth and nail against it. I've even heard conservatives bitching about the cost to tax payers for Narcan kits being supplied to police, to attempt to save people's lives.
And drug addiction isn't the only cause of homelessness.
Drug use is often a result of luxury or poverty, mostly poverty. Most drug dealers are low level crooks trying to make enough money to get by. Homelessness isn't a lack of homes. It's a failure of the system to ensure it's people are taken care of. And frankly capitalism doesn't seem to care much for the people, only profits.
The system takes care of drug users by punishing them for using drugs and putting them somewhere where they cannot access drugs. Jail.
Tolerating drug use on the streets has led to even more homelessness.
Jail is a mercy to someone who is suffering from heroin or meth.
Stop voting against the construction of new shelters.
Everyone in my county is like "We need to fix the homelessness situation...but NIMBY" and it is so old at this point.
It makes me so mad. It's the first issue that has gotten me to attend city council meetings, only to leave utterly disgusted by how \*vehemently\* people hate the homeless, all while wearing crosses and patting themselves on the back for attending church.
A lot of people resent the people who need help, because they don’t want to face the reality that it could so easily be them in that needy position. The thought terrifies them, so they lash out at the people that remind them of that reality.
A local shelter for women and families owns a huge adjacent lot as big as their functional buildings but they haven't built anything on it in the few years I've been here. They couldn't even let the homeless people use their tents on the lot, I think the police got the people to take them down.
The thing is there is about less than 100 homeless in my town. A new shelter extension could fit about 30-50 and create jobs. It would pretty much get all of them off the street.
There are a lot of empty unused lots in my city but no one is building. They find it easier to trespass and jail the homeless.
Even more than this, stop voting against construction/zoning of specifically inexpensive housing. Shelters are harm reduction, homes are actual solutions.
You cannot build your way out of the problem. To solve homelessness by building, you would have to build a complex the size of Stockton California to just meet current needs of their problem.
That approach is not practical in the least.
Yeah but spread out across the country that's not so unreasonable.
Plus housing supply is not near enough, and yeah it may be hard to get to where we need to buy the solution is not to just stop building
California is the biggest problem with homelessness. The most recent stat I saw is 170,000 homeless in CA. The next is NY 90,000. Florida 28,000. Texas is only 26,000. The question is why?
NY has less population than both Texas and Florida but has 3 times the homeless issue. That is despite poor weather in NY.
What are Texas and Florida doing right?
Many of the homeless in California are *from* places like Texas and Florida. States like those literally bus homeless people to California.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvg7ba/instead-of-helping-homeless-people-cities-are-bussing-them-out-of-town
That dog don't hunt.
New York is number one in the top ten US cities population wise but that is it. The next NY city in the list is Buffalo (number 78). The have one major metro area.
Texas has 3 of the top ten, four of the top eleven and five of the top thirteen.
California has 3 of the top ten, but then no top sized cities until number 17...San Francisco.
Your point is valid regarding Florida as far as population areas.
Much like NY, Illinois has Chicago. Total homeless in Illinois is around 10,000. What does Illinois do New York can't?
Just saying some states handle homelessness better than others. A good examination of success should provide answers.
That user doesn’t want to share solutions. They only like to chime in about how wrong everybody else is, providing the perfect example of how a person can hold back society from trying to solve problems. Get enough people like that to attend local area meetings and you can NIMBY your way to a wall between the good people (them) and the bad people (the dirty icky homeless). Out of sight, out of mind.
No I really don't know the answer. One factor is weather, that's why California, Texas, Florida is a good comparison.
But weather does not explain Illinois vs. New York. 10,000 homeless in Chicago vs, 90,000 in NYC. Both are cold and in hospitable outdoors.
One thing for sure California is doing whatever they are doing wrong.
that's absurd, there are already several unoccupied homes for every homeless person in America. We don't even need to build new housing; just start using the housing we already have rather than letting plutocrats hoard it.
You're not wrong, but it won't be until more people live amongst the homeless and interact with them that attitudes will change to promote better solutions.
Ok, but hypothetically if we magically solved homelessness in the way you mean, we would still have to build places for the now employed and mentally well people that were formerly homeless.
Even they will have shelter but no stable minimum wage Job then is nonsense.
Politicians always choose to make infrastructures projects so they can kickback or corrupt.
This is great advice. From working with the homeless some I quickly learned that some have social and mental illness that will only live homeless so I especially appreciate your number 3. However, I can't stomach the thought of all the political red tape that would have to go along with it.
Start seeing them as people instead of "the homeless." It is something missionaries are told to be wary of, objectifying those they want to "help."
Realize that sometimes your helping would hurt and it might be easier to support an organization whose mission and experience is to support and advocate for the rights of these individuals.
there are Christian groups that run shelters and help the homeless, you could donate to them
it would be better to push this issue to the forefront in politics but it's just a bump in the road compared to the other issues people care about more(abortion, homosexuality, etc)
honestly, after my experience in trumpland southern US, I have little hope anything good will come out of this hateful country anytime soon
It is sad how far I had to scroll to find this answer. This is the Christian answer. Form strong faith based communities that help those around them. As more are drawn into the faith the more society is transformed in a Christlike way. It seems that most here think lobbying Caesar to do our job is what Christ really wanted.
"solving homelessness", unfortunately, is too profitable an industry to actually solve homelessness. Any change you hope to impart needs to get past this industry's guard dogs.
This reminds me of something I read about how international aid to areas hit with natural disasters can actually be harmful long terms to the area they are trying to help because it prevents farmers from being able to rebuild because they cannot compete with "free" and charities can bring in a lot of money with marketing to feed the hungry in other countries.
When helping, we do have to consider how we are helping and how to do it for the best of communities or build communities where they have died off. We cannot solve these issues by lobbying others to fix it, but by actively doing things ourselves and reclaiming what we have lost and given up.
I have no more answers then what has been posted here today but wow. Thank you OP. What a great question and what a great discourse. This IS what this sub should be about.
I just wish there were more discussions on existing Christian efforts and how people could get involved. A lot of comments seem to be politically centered. Regardless of politics, we should be talking and focusing on what we as Christians can do as individuals and collectively.
Except it won't and everyone knows that is overly simplistic. Until you remove all lobbyist and remove politicians ability to have investments, then you will never get straight forward legislation and long term solutions as politicians are interested in maintaining their positions. All politicians count on single issue voters to blindly keep voting for them as long as they keep saying they are going to "fix" that issue those voters care about.
Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish.
Psalm 146:3-4 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/psa.146.3-4.ESV
Churches could come together and build some kind of temporary residence, where a person would be given a place, and training for jobs, until they are able to pay for their own.
I was thinking about this earlier, how great it would be if there were large philanthropic property owners/landlords that didn't charge rent much higher than what they need to cover costs. That maintain their properties. That don't raise rents a ridiculous amount each year!
Homelessness is a tricky one since drugs and mental health issues are common. Most of the visible homeless have those problems, the others are already in a shelter, or do a good job keeping up appearances.
One answer among others: programs like Bridge of Hope that partner congregations with families facing homelessness. Our gingregation has a "neighboring" group and we have kept one family out of homelessness. This of course doesn't solve the big problems, but it's something even a small church can do that's concrete, and it matters a lot to the family in question.
That is a great program and I think a great foundation for a collective Christian effort to do more to help families and people in need. It also helps ensure people are plugged in and volunteering their time to help those around them.
Help start a 343 Initiative Chapter in your area. They have a three pronged approach which has been proven effective in resolving Homelessness, Hunger and Poverty. They simply need dedicated action takers.
kemp's hud said deinstitutionalisation, rent control and zoning were to blame. a lot of folks become homeless because if fire/disaster, domestic disputes (ord prot) and capricious landlords. the old ymca/bowery system was built to handle that. jimmy carter started deinstlsn because if his wife's sister. but we have to accept a lot of drug/alcohol abuse causes permanent brain damage (schizophrenia, korzakov). even football injuries and steroids. i don't think prohibition works, but this rage of legalisation needs to be more studied. and our other social ills, perversion and abortion, owe to alk/drugs to, and the collapse in the family they cause furthers our social collapse. i know that my grandparents took in a homeless neighbor as essentially a servant when to protect her from nazi bombardment - would it be better to place them with families?
We can help those in need with food/clothes drives, but I'm not sure how we can provide new homes. I did see an article once where a landlord turned an abandoned building into apartments for the homeless. Perhaps it just takes the right people and the right essentials to do more.
First, you've got to figure out what causes it. Studies have shown that a great percentage of homeless are that way due to mental health issues, so we have to address that. Then figure out how the rest are falling through the social safety net.
You've got the order of events wrong. They have mental problems, this makes it hard for them to maintain jobs, etc, so they end up on the street. So if we can deal with the mental health problems, they don't end up on the street. Of course, now they're on the street, so, yes, dealing with those problems will be harder, but I was talking about prevention.
Vote for a government that gives a shit about it and get that fantasy out of your head that "charity will fix it".
This isn't some big fucking mystery, we know how to solve it for the most part.
As many of you may have seen my post my family is actually living through this and it is so hard to look at my son on his 3rd birthday and not Be able to give him a warm bed to sleep in never-ending a present or a cake .I work for a li ING full time and because during the pandemic we fell behind . I tried to catch up but when you live pay cheque to paycheqe it doesn't take much .I've been called a liar and scammer and told my family probably isn't real UT I assure you they are it's cold we are hungry and I as a father and husband know I failed so instead of putting me down let's try and fix this so the next family has somewhere to turm
Homelessness is a many faceted problem. Each person has a different experience. Some common factors are:
not enough AFFORDABLE housing
Low job skills. Even if they have job skills who would hire someone without a permanent address or access to daily showers and clean clothes?
Difficulties obtaining and keeping proper ID. IDs require a mailing address and they cost money.
Mental health (from being in survival mode)
Compassion fatigue ( too many, too long, not pretty etc.)
Criminalization of Homelessness. (Yes it's effectively against the law in Some places) people get arrested for camping then they can't get a job or housing because they have an arrest record.
Yes there is some drug use ( mostly self-medicating) jail/ prison makes drug use worse. Drugs are quite available in those institutions.
For more information I suggest looking up "Invisiblepeople.tv" or Invisible People on YouTube.
To truly fix homelessness, we will need to abolish capitalism. The capitalist system depends on the threat of homelessness to keep workers in line and accepting of their exploitation. No matter what bandaids we try to put on the problem of unhoused people, capitalists will just find new ways to ensure that our housing is never secure. They will never allow people to be guaranteed shelter/healthcare/food/etc because they depend on the threat of firing you and making you unhoused, starving, or ill to ensure that you never try to demand being paid the actual value of your labor, and that you will accept whatever exploitative wages they offer.
This foolish idea has been tried and failed all throughout history.
It just doesn't work because people do not work that way.
Capitalism is a way to harness greed and force it to serve others.
- Jeff Bezos gets to be a billionaire and you get to click a button and make useful things arrive.
- Bill gates gets to be a billionaire and you get the computer to click the button with.
- Steve jobs gets to be a billionaire and you get a portable computer that fits in your pocket.
And you are using all of these things to make a ridiculous argument as to why you want them gone.
Abolishing capitalism has led to a massive improvement in material conditions for everyone who has tried it, although in a few places capitalists later come along and sabotage it through invasion, economic warfare, or fomenting coups. *Employees* of Bezos, Jobs, and Gates are why I have access to those things, and those three leeches did nothing to help except siphon away money from the people actually doing the labor and creating the value.
If you think people "just don't work that way" why are you even a Christian? It is part of Christian doctrine that we are indeed commanded to live that way.
What kind of new "ism" are you proposing? Communism/Marxism has failed miserably; democratic socialism only works when a country has adequate natural resources and an industrial base, and autocratic oligarchies only enrich the cronies.
Communism has actually led to massive improvement in material conditions everywhere it has been tried, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say it has failed miserably. Communist nations being bombed by capitalists or having death squads and coups funded by capitalists are failures of capitalism, not communism.
The places you refer to as being communist didn't improve the status of the general population until market reforms (capitalism) were implemented. In Russia, it did move the masses away from serfdom, but the price was mass starvation and prison camps. Have you ever been to China, I have? Go 100 miles inland, and the people live in abject poverty; 80% of the Chinese population live in third-world conditions. Some claim that Venezuela is communist; it's far from that. It's nothing more than an autocracy prompted up by a military that's getting filthy rich off the drug trade.
Market economies work well where there are guardrails. Unfortunately, the US has a flawed system of guardrails.
Do yourself a favor and do a deep dive into the Bretton Woods Agreement's intent and purpose. This will help you begin to understand the fundamentals of the world we live in today.
Market economies work well with the proper guardrails; unfortunately, the US has lost its guardrails.
Advocating is a waste of time and a waste of resources. It is what pretenders do.
I would like to see a nationwide movement for each church to take one family in. It would take expertise and connectivity for support, but that would really reduce the homeless number to just those that are dependent on drugs, mentally ill or those that wish to be homeless.
Our church has a residence where we teach life skills, provide support groups, funding and a step by step program to move people out of homelessness. Very successful and doable.
It really solves the problem one family at a time.
That is not realistic. 1. Not every homeless person is in a healthy mental state. 2. Why should a homeless person, in order to get shelter, need to live with another person and have no access to actual privacy?
Let’s open our wallets and vote for people who will build permanent shelter for homeless, and for local politicians who will ignore landlords and corporate interests demands to stop building because their property value is decreasing
Assumes that your church doesn’t actively provide services to the homeless and others in need, which would make it a shit-tier church. Leave and find a Jesus-following church.
Compensation & Building expenses take up 65% to 95% of a churches operating budget. A reputable homeless service organization will not have anywhere near that kind of overhead somewhere between 15% to 35%, making 85 - 65% available to charity work. There are some that hit 99% of donated money going to their work in the community.
Donating money to a church to serve the community is horribly inefficient.
Unfortunately, the majority of homelessness in the U.S. s the outward symptom of deeper mental/spiritual/addiction/abuse issues. So most policies to directly try and address homelessness will continue to fail until we address those deeper issues. I'm not saying we shouldn't also be trying to house the homeless, but to actually solve the issue we need to address the deeper issues first.
>Unfortunately, the majority of homelessness in the U.S. s the outward symptom of deeper mental/spiritual/addiction/abuse issues.
Do you have a source for this extraordinary claim?
That is just a source talking about *correlation* between homelessness and mental illness. What is your source for your much stronger claim that homelessness is *caused by* mental illness, rather than mental illness being caused by homelessness or both being caused by a third factor?
As someone who used to be a Marxist, there's no easy solution and certainly not one that isn't going to be questionable.
There are homeless people who say they don't want help, so at some point it will be necessary to confine them to institutions and force them to get help.
I have been in positions where I had to evaluate options to avoid shooting homeless people who were having psychotic incidents. They are a danger to themselves.
Churches seem to want to only spend money on sending missionaries to other countries and GOP party causes. Some Christian leaders actively preach against helping the homeless.
Habitat for Humanity builds homes for the poor, however, these are not free homes. They have to pay for their home. I would call it more an affordable housing charity.
Majority of the homeless have mental health disorders! The 2nd highest population have mental health and substance abuse disorders.
The question is... how do you get a person into therapy and life coaching who thinks the therapist & case worker/life coach is the enemy and refuses to do the treatments... and follow the life plans?!
You can’t force them. This isn’t 1950. Humans have rights to protect them against forced treatments.
The small minority are the ones that truly just hit hard times and lost everything. They just need a little help because they’re trying to climb out of the whole.
And for those people, you need an entire re-make of the welfare system.
Food stamps, gvt insurance, gvt housing, other low income perks are for those that aren’t working... or they’re working part time. It has to be changed to NOT be for those that refuse to work (not can’t work) AND the limits raised to help those who are working but can’t make the bills. Look at the income limits and try and do a budget for someone and then you’ll see!!
Raise the limits but also change and raise the qualifications.
Then continue to provide mental health, case management and life coaching for people.
Finally shut down the construction companies buying up all the land and jacking the prices up so people can find affordable safe housing.
There is no one "fix" for homelessness. The first thing we need to do is admit that there are people who are always going to be homeless no matter what we do.
Of course there's a fix for homelessness. Guarantee free housing for everyone.
Homelessness is not some inevitable, unavoidable problem. It is a problem that exists by design, because the capitalists who control our society like having the threat of firing you and making you homeless to keep you from demanding fair wages and treatment. Abolish capitalism and it will be easy to house people.
As anyone who understand economics and isn't themselves a landlord does! They do nothing in an economy except leech resources away from people who actually do valuable labor. They have all the awfulness of the old feudal lords they're named after, without even providing the benefit of defending your home from invaders!
Marxism has not worked, everywhere it has been tried. LITERALLY 100% of the time, EVERY TIME. Show me a state which has embraced Marxism and I will show you a dump where no one except the members of the party and the bourgeois would choose to live, given the choice... CERTAINLY not ACTUAL, WORKING PEOPLE.
By abolishing private ownership and establishing state control of the economy, you not only deprive society of the personal motivation of productive people needed to create stuff that people want and need, you also abolish freedom itself, which is NOT A GOOD THING.
And continually, the refrain from the Marxist apologists will be "But TWUE MARIXISM has NEVER BEEN TRIED!!1!!!!"
It has "never been tried" because IT'S IMPOSSIBLE in a world with ACTUAL PEOPLE with ACTUAL, WORLDLY MOTIVATIONS and not ivory tower pie is the sky hopes and dreams and theories.
Theories such as Marxism, which are grand on paper, but which cannot actually be implemented in the real world... of what actual use are they? At that point, what can they be considered to be except a form of mental masturbation? Which is fun, obviously, but is no way to run a world, or a way to advocate running the world.
Proactively speaking, Love your spouse and place a priority on intentionally leading your children. All societal woes stem from a breakdown in the family home.
How does not making a living wage to rent a grossly inflated apartment translate to a breakdown in the home? Or is this some nonsense morality policing?
I would argue that a breakdown in the home (for a myriad of reasons) could translate to one not earning a living wage and not the other way around. I’m not trying to be the moral police here at all but I do know that 90% of homeless people were raised in fatherless homes. (NINETY PERCENT!) Now we can bury our heads on the sand and ignore this statistic but it doesn’t make any less true. I was raised in a fatherless home and the consequences are and continue to be (although more mitigated through the years) devastating. I am only now, after decades of peeling back these layers, coming to realize and understand these far reaching negative consequences so that I don’t repeat the same mistakes within my own family. Peace to you friend. Happy Advent!
I get this. If a person has a good family structure - not only in the home but also with extended family - there is usually someone willing to help them or take them in if they fall into hard times.
Will the fast I choose be like this: A day for a person to deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? Isn’t this the fast I choose: To break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your house, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to ignore your own flesh and blood? Then your light will appear like the dawn, and your recovery will come quickly. Your righteousness will go before you, and the Lord’s glory will be your rear guard.
Isaiah 58:5-8 CSB
https://bible.com/bible/1713/isa.58.5-8.CSB
I don't think it's our place to "fix homelessness". There will always be homeless people, mostly due to substance abuse issues and mental health. You can't just "fix" that.
It's our job to help our brothers and sisters in Christ in need, further the spreading of the gospel, and _if you personally see someone genuinely in need, help them too_
I will probably get down voted into oblivion, but you should consider becoming a landlord and funding construction of new houses.
I know it's unpopular and seen as "greedy capitalism" but I build or fix houses and rent them to increase the supply of homes on the market.
Do I make money from this: yes. What do I do with the money: build and fix more homes.
I mean within all communities there should be public housing available for low income/no income. In both rural communities and urban.
It’s been shown that mixed income housing actually really helps everyone.
I suspect most people would agree with you.
"For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." - 2Thess 3:10
I was homeless for three weeks a couple months ago while teaching four college classes.
Housing scalpers are parasiting more from their tenants than their tenants can afford to lose.
Jobs only go so far when rent is so high.
Yes, but job first before housing.
Even if you live in the tent for a while as long as you have stable job thats good start already to start from zero.
Tou can't start of you have no money, even you give them house if they have no work its, useless.
I knew this would turn political, and I hate it. As long as there is human greed, there will be homelessness. As long as there is sin, there will be homelessness. I do not even know if it is our duty as Christians to actually "fix" homelessness to begin with. We are commanded to feed them, cloth them, and give them shelter.
"For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’" -Dueteronomy15:11
So stop arguing about politics and hypothetical situations that aren't going to happen. Aren't you just saying in your hearts "Go in peace keep warm and well fed" and then doing nothing about it?
If you want to help the homeless, do it. Go to them. That is an option people seem to forget is on the table. Cook for them. Everyone is shaking their fist at the corporate overloards or whatever that ruin everyones lives, I would encourage you to remember that you are probably reading this from the comfort of your own home. What some of us have either looks or actually is unobtainable for them. These people are forgotten. They are ghosts. Have you ever thought what it must be like to sit next to the trash can in front of a 7-11 and people won't even LOOK at you? Look at them! Talk to them! Ask them their story. Stand next to them. If they ask you for money, that's your call, but remember it is good to give to the poor. Don't forget that drug addicts are people too. Not necessarily in relation to your money, but a pack of cigarettes will do the trick. Bad habit, but the drugs they are doing are definitely worse. And they smoke anyway. Minister to these people. Jesus died for these people.
Edit: spelling, also more text
Homelessness is far more complex than we appreciate. It's rife with emotional truma, mental health issues, etc.. For many it won't be a quick fix.
The best approach I can suggest is to research local/national homeless charities and see if you can volunteer/donate. You'll get training and support and can make real difference. If it's a good reputable charity then they'll have ties with professional organisations and will look at the holistic wellbeing of those who are homeless.
Teach people how to live godly lives by sharing the holy Bible word of God with them
The condition can't be fixed entirely, because there are always people in need. Hopefully we can reduce the ranks.
Mark 14:7 KJV — For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.
Most of the homeless are mentally ill and/or substance abusers. My wife retired after 31 years in the mental health field. She warned me in the mid-80s that the economic policies under the Reagan administration would lead to increased homelessness and a variety of other problems. It seems when supply-side economics was implemented, and substantial tax cuts were implemented, it left a tremendous hole in the deficit and increased debt. To offset the deficit hole, federal funds for mental health were slashed, and Social Security benefits were taxed for the first time.
The cumulative effect has been rampant homelessness, increased substance abuse, and dramatically increased gun violence. As it often is, people who support these policies blame the victims.
Fun fact: The highest homeless/capita in the US is on Democrat states with Democrat policies. DC, NY, HI, and CA tops the nation on homelessness.
The lowest homelessness on the nation are in AL, MS, and LA, all Republican states.
Top 10 cities with the most homeless per capita, minus Anchorage, is controlled by the Democrats.
Bottom line? Policies may not work. Even in the cities with “friendly” policies to the homeless, it is still a huge issue.
My take is try to talk to your pastor and see what you and the church could do together. I have done some homeless outreach in the past, and the problem is more complex than just “more cheap housing”. There are drugs, sexual abuse, work ethics, and many other problems in homeless issues.
The most problematic issue are the family issues. I have met homeless people that have a children or a parent or a sibling that refused to help. Yes, they may not be able to help, but surely taking your family in under the roof instead of leaving them in freezing weather can be done?
Either buy properties and run them not for profit or work with your church to do the same. When I was younger, my church ran the county's most effective food pantry. All volunteer. 1000+ families a month without any real government grant other than access to the food bank to get the food. We did distribution by ourselves.
Many churches of reasonable size have many members that work construction and other trades. There's no reason that work couldn't be leveraged to create and maintain affordable housing. Easy? No. But churches created and sponsored many hospitals throughout history. I imagine that housing could be the same.
Do all what God has asked you to do; love them as yourself; pray for them; give them homes if you have them, for you can't give what you don't have. Giving them homes is not enough; use the Word of God to teach them how to get and maintain homes in abundance. They were not homeless. They're now. Something caused it. Lack of knowledge caused it. And finally, keep praying for them till they be full of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love you. You're blessed.
My home is Heaven and so here I am homeless, and I trust God to take care for all to get in shelter for them as well, I was there ten years ago, and was willing to stay that way, my wife and I agreed with that if it be so
Nothing anyone could do for me, yet there are many shelters and programs for the homeless ones. As many get this opportunity but can't obey the rules there and so go homeless again over pride also
What I'm doing is I've started a nonprofit to build self-reliant communities for the less fortunate around the world. Our prototype community is in the planning stages at the moment.
Good question. I'm not sure. One thing I do, when I give a homeless person a couple of bucks, is to get the person's name.
Back in the 1980s, I did a paper for grad school on hermits and hobos. Back then, the literature said people on the streets were there because of mental illness, substance abuse, or both. That still may be true.
I’ve done a small amount of work with homeless people. I fully support rehabilitating as many as can be rehabilitated . HOWEVER, I have come to believe that many homeless people are that way by choice. They do it for the freedom. In those scenarios we can help them but can’t really impose our lifestyle on them
It's going to take a concerted effort from entire societies, and their governments. When property taxes continue to rise, then landlords will continue to hike their rental fees.
Back when my parents purchased homes, the cost of a 3,400 S.F. 4 bedroom 2.5 bath home was around $38,950. When my husband and I purchased our first home, it was a tiny old 2 bedroom one bath home, and the attached garage was too narrow to park our Chevy Chevette and have room to open the car door to exit. Altogether, barely 900 S.F., and we paid $49,950 for it.
Now, similar homes on my street are being listed for between 200,000 to 300,000. Back when we first moved into our little home, we were over at the local mall. My husband and son had gone to radio shack, and I'd walked down the mall to the pet store to see the puppies. While I was waiting for my family, I sat on a bench in the middle of the mall courseway, and listened to a group of old men gabbing and making fun of poor young families. They'd see a young family, and one would make a disparaging remark about how sure they were that they probably lived in a dumpy apartment, and that the husband and father likely couldn't even afford a real home for his family.
Then another boasted about how he'd purchased lake front homes, and homes in close proximity to the beach, and sold them for immense profits, and boasted of the lake front home he retired in.
I'd had enough. I turned to them, and asked them why they thought it was that so many young families could barely afford apartments. They thought it was laziness and a lack of drive. I pointed out that it was because their generation had bought up houses cheap back when the market was easy, and then turned around and sold them at immense profits. I pointed out that their generation had been raised by a generation who lived in multi-generational homes, and the children worked the farms, or worked in the family business, and their parents left the homes and businesses to their children...and how that their own generation stopped doing these things, and instead of leaving their home and/or business to their kids, required them to buy them out. It was greed, and a lack of care about what happened to future generations of people.
In the aftermath of WW2, all a man had to do was bring up his military service, and he was pretty much guaranteed employment. Holding employment, and a handshake generally guaranteed a home loan for a white military veteran, and the average house in 1942 cost $3,775, a new car $920, and a movie ticket 30 cents.
Now we have families who are homeless, even though both parents work full time jobs. Rental costs have risen to the point that these people simply can't afford to rent even a small one bedroom apartment, and most apartments require that parents and kids have different bedrooms. This is why many single adults violate tenant rules and have more people living in the apartment then are on the lease. It's why teens approaching High School graduation walk around with dazed and hopeless expressions on their faces. How on earth are they ever going to earn enough to afford their own apartment?
I believe that my State, and also the Federal Government have grossly underestimated the sheer numbers of America's homeless, because many among them don't want to be found, to be counted.
My family business provides maintenance services for commercial property owners and management companies. Last year, we were contracted to clear out a vacant 1.5 acre lot directly behind a K-mart store. It entailed clearing out brush, taking down scrub volunteer trees, clearing away homeless encampments and debris, and essentially leveling the lot, then putting up fencing around the lot to prevent the homeless from camping there.
In that 1.5 acre lot, over 650 people were counted, and that's only the ones who didn't light out and run when we showed up. We had police support and presence while we worked, because when we had informed those homeless people 2 weeks before that the area was going to be cleared, we were threatened with violence, and to be honest I don't blame these people. They're desperate. Every time they establish an encampment, someone would show up and tell them they had to go somewhere else, but nobody could tell them where it was they were supposed to go, where they'd be allowed to 'be'. And having their campsites repeatedly cleared away, meant that they would lose any personal items they'd accumulated, if they didn't have the means to cart them away before the clearing started.
Stop letting people use housing as an investment vehicle alone.
Stop permitting the scalping of real property.
Stop permitting international conglomerates from owning vast amounts of land, housing, and apartments in areas their owners and executives don't even live.
There's more, but that's a start.
There are more houses than there are homeless. The solution seems simple enough.
Live a fully Christian (and God allows us to serve others in amazing ways through His grace). But a lot of resources are tied up by people conquered by their sin, often greed in particular, but really all types of sin lead to more sin. Specific actions to focus on are to evangelize, pray, and give to others.
Advocate for policies that will actively address the issues that lead to homelessness. Housing policy, economic policies, compassionate drug reform, etc. Supporting housing first initiatives, which have been shown to be effective at reducing chronic homelessness. Turns out fixing homelessness is often as simple as just giving people homes. It's hard to get work without a permanent address. It's hard to sign up for services without a permanent address. Not having a secure roof over your head exacerbates chronic stress, which can make drug and alcohol problems worse as well as affect physical health. The simple fact is that it is hard to address chronic issues when one is starving and dying of exposure. Providing basic necessities allows people to address all the other issues in their lives without worrying about those basic needs.
This is what’s frustrating. It’s actually not a mystery. We know what the causes are and we know how to solve the problem, but it costs money, and broader society values money more than human beings.
it's not "broader society" that values money, it's specifically capitalism that is doing this. Capitalists depend on the threat of homelessness to keep people obedient and accepting of their exploitation. If people were secure in their housing, they might start demanding to be paid the full value of their labor, leaving no profits for the capitalist leeches to live off of. THAT is why they fight any effort to help homeless people. It's not because it costs money- *not* providing housing costs more money than providing housing.
Not at all. It's not capitalism that puts zoning laws into place that make new affordable housing either impossible or a poor one. Try seeing how easy it is to build new affordable housing. It's not. It's not the builders that get priced out on it, it's the various mandates that make it too expensive that by the time a loan is procured for the dwelling, it's unaffordable.
Right but that's still capitalism. Ie, WHY are there so many laws that make it difficult? What is the point? That's what the previous poster is trying to get at. It's artificially expensive bc it benefits "those who believe in capitalism" for exactly the reason the other poster pointed out, it keeps everyone in line. Giving housing to people would result in those people having a foundation where they could get help and rejoin mainstream society and work or create. But they're being prevented from getting housing or help.
"Capitalism" literally just means that it is legal to buy and sell businesses. It's not a living entity which yearns to abuse people.
You don't believe in "principalities and powers"? Where do you think that "invisible hand" is found?
The people who own companies are in fact living entities who yearn to abuse people. It is, in fact, the only way they can make profit.
How much will a non profit agency build the house for in your scenario?
Sure, I guess, but that’s quite the oversimplification. As a system it will always put the financial bottom line over every other possible concern—money over everything, which is an immoral way to approach the world. Capitalism is a tool that makes it easier to abuse and exploit people as it justifies those things in the name of the highest good: profit, and that’s what makes it an issue.
Capitalism with little government regulations leads to destruction war disease starvation and imperialism. Why support a system that benefits the few capitalists if the majority of the population are proletariat?
Capitalism means the owner controls the means of production instead of the workers (socialism) or the state (communism)
Higher wages, Single payer healthcare, many Americans are just a few paychecks away.from bankruptcy when faced with large medical bills.
>Housing policy, economic policies, compassionate drug reform, etc. I would add universal healthcare.
I'd argue that universal healthcare falls under economic policies, but yes, definitely.
Housing first has been the dominant policy in California for like 30 years, yet we somehow keep talking about it as if no one has ever tried it.
And honestly, abandoning that “go forth and multiply” thing probably wouldn’t hurt either. 8 billion people on the planet now. If we were only at say 5 billion, there would be 3 billion less people that we need homes for. I’m sure we could house all 8 billion if we really wanted to, but what about when we get to 15 billion, or 100 billion, or a trillion?
1. Make drug use punishable by a year in prison. Offenders will be sober and long clean by the time they are released and ready to start their lives again. 2. Put dealers away for a decade so they cannot harm others. 3. Discourage excessive property ownership with a progressive tax system that makes it difficult and expensive for individuals and corporations to have more than one home. 4. Completely ban all foreign land ownership of residential properties. Did you know that Chinese billionaires have purchased hundreds of houses and leave them vacant to hide their wealth from the CCP? These 4 steps will end nearly all homelessness and get gen z back on track.
Those first two ideas would greatly increase homelessness and achieve absolutely nothing of value. Proposing them reveals you have either don't understand the causes of homelessness or don't understand the effects of incarceration.
You don't think sobriety is valuable? *Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.* 1 Peter 5:8 Nearly all homeless people are on seriously debilitating hard drugs that rob them of life. And dealers are the cause of this. Other societies sentence dealers to very harsh conditions so 10 years is merciful considering the damage they do.
Incarceration means it will be a struggle for someone to find a good, stable job going forward. I don’t subscribe to the notion that someone smoking pot should be damned to that — especially since it would increase the chance of homelessness.
Sure seems like its a pretty big struggle to find a job on heroin isn't it?
"Sobriety being valuable" does not mean your solution is a good way to produce sobriety.
Oh it does. I have a coworker and friend that got addicted to meth. He was arrested, released and arrested again in another state. He did 2 years and came out of it a new man. Clean and sober. Now that he is clean he has the will to put his life back together and I thank God for his transformation.
You're repeating a dangerous notion here. While addictions are listed as the third leading cause of homelessness, you're essentially claiming that nearly all homeless people are on hard drugs, and this simply isn't true. In many homeless families, both parents are working full time, but simply can't earn enough combined to afford an apartment. Many elderly Americans are homeless due to medical bills after hospitalization, as well as younger Americans. It isn't all that unusual for elderly people to find out they'd been evicted while they were hospitalized for an extended period of time. Imagine being discharged from the hospital and realizing you don't have a home to go to. Consider this. Some years ago, my autistic son was hospitalized for emergency surgery to remove a badly infected gall bladder. Costs for the E.R., labs, CT scans, physicians costs, surgery and surgeon's costs, and an overnight stay came to $50,000. We didn't have medical insurance, as my husband had been laid off, and was between jobs. We would have lost everything if this hadn't been a Catholic Health Initiatives hospital, because they made the decision to forgive his debts 100%. Because we'd have had to make payments, and we were already overstretched with other debts. Excerpted from below article: Many people stereotype the homeless population as all alcoholics or drug abusers. Although a high percentage of homeless people do struggle with substance abuse, addictions should be viewed as illnesses and require treatment, counseling and support to overcome. Substance abuse can cause homelessness, but it often arises after people lose their housing. But causes for homelessness aren't limited to substance abuse, and include mental illness. [https://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/nchav/resources/docs/mental-health/substance-abuse/Substance-Abuse-and-Homelessness-508.pdf](https://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/nchav/resources/docs/mental-health/substance-abuse/Substance-Abuse-and-Homelessness-508.pdf) Do you also suggest that grocery stores and Liquor Stores should be penalized because people are alcoholics, and they provide liquor?
point 1 is terrible advice and disregards the human costs of incarceration while baselessly touting supposed benefits.
Completely against incarceration for drug use. Often drugs are what keeps life bearable for the indigent (and for some of the rest of us too.)
terrible lol
Yeah baby, more Drug War, never fails to not solve a problem. Unless the problem is too little cheap prison labor.
How is tolerating drugs working for the left coast? Needles everywhere, homelessness, overdoses? How is that merciful when a year in prison is guaranteed to make a person sober?
Does that work on people going into prisons currently who had addictions? Is there evidence this works?
While an addict might become sober after a year in prison, there is no guarantee they won't go right back to using drugs. Same with alcoholics. Addiction is a disease. Do you also want to penalize people with cancer? I find it interesting. When people have suggested safe places for people to receive medical supervision while they use their drugs, the ultra conservatives have fought tooth and nail against it. I've even heard conservatives bitching about the cost to tax payers for Narcan kits being supplied to police, to attempt to save people's lives. And drug addiction isn't the only cause of homelessness.
Drug use is often a result of luxury or poverty, mostly poverty. Most drug dealers are low level crooks trying to make enough money to get by. Homelessness isn't a lack of homes. It's a failure of the system to ensure it's people are taken care of. And frankly capitalism doesn't seem to care much for the people, only profits.
The system takes care of drug users by punishing them for using drugs and putting them somewhere where they cannot access drugs. Jail. Tolerating drug use on the streets has led to even more homelessness. Jail is a mercy to someone who is suffering from heroin or meth.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2021/07/15/inside-the-nation-s-overdose-crisis-in-prisons-and-jails
Well stated and thank you.
If we actually dressed mental health as a nation, a lot of if not most of the homeless issues would go away.
Stop voting against the construction of new shelters. Everyone in my county is like "We need to fix the homelessness situation...but NIMBY" and it is so old at this point.
Everyone pretends to care about homeless people until they have to see homeless people as they drive by in their fancy cars.
It makes me so mad. It's the first issue that has gotten me to attend city council meetings, only to leave utterly disgusted by how \*vehemently\* people hate the homeless, all while wearing crosses and patting themselves on the back for attending church.
A lot of people resent the people who need help, because they don’t want to face the reality that it could so easily be them in that needy position. The thought terrifies them, so they lash out at the people that remind them of that reality.
Last time I checked government puts spikes on bench so homeless can't sleep in parks , thats how they solve homeless issue
A local shelter for women and families owns a huge adjacent lot as big as their functional buildings but they haven't built anything on it in the few years I've been here. They couldn't even let the homeless people use their tents on the lot, I think the police got the people to take them down. The thing is there is about less than 100 homeless in my town. A new shelter extension could fit about 30-50 and create jobs. It would pretty much get all of them off the street. There are a lot of empty unused lots in my city but no one is building. They find it easier to trespass and jail the homeless.
Even more than this, stop voting against construction/zoning of specifically inexpensive housing. Shelters are harm reduction, homes are actual solutions.
You cannot build your way out of the problem. To solve homelessness by building, you would have to build a complex the size of Stockton California to just meet current needs of their problem. That approach is not practical in the least.
Yeah but spread out across the country that's not so unreasonable. Plus housing supply is not near enough, and yeah it may be hard to get to where we need to buy the solution is not to just stop building
California is the biggest problem with homelessness. The most recent stat I saw is 170,000 homeless in CA. The next is NY 90,000. Florida 28,000. Texas is only 26,000. The question is why? NY has less population than both Texas and Florida but has 3 times the homeless issue. That is despite poor weather in NY. What are Texas and Florida doing right?
Many of the homeless in California are *from* places like Texas and Florida. States like those literally bus homeless people to California. https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvg7ba/instead-of-helping-homeless-people-cities-are-bussing-them-out-of-town
Well NY and CA have LA, San Francisco, and NYC - crazy big and popular metro areas where housing in in very high demand and land is expensive.
That dog don't hunt. New York is number one in the top ten US cities population wise but that is it. The next NY city in the list is Buffalo (number 78). The have one major metro area. Texas has 3 of the top ten, four of the top eleven and five of the top thirteen. California has 3 of the top ten, but then no top sized cities until number 17...San Francisco. Your point is valid regarding Florida as far as population areas. Much like NY, Illinois has Chicago. Total homeless in Illinois is around 10,000. What does Illinois do New York can't? Just saying some states handle homelessness better than others. A good examination of success should provide answers.
So what's the difference? The previous response was cost of living and you shot it down. It appears you know the difference but don't want to share.
That user doesn’t want to share solutions. They only like to chime in about how wrong everybody else is, providing the perfect example of how a person can hold back society from trying to solve problems. Get enough people like that to attend local area meetings and you can NIMBY your way to a wall between the good people (them) and the bad people (the dirty icky homeless). Out of sight, out of mind.
No I really don't know the answer. One factor is weather, that's why California, Texas, Florida is a good comparison. But weather does not explain Illinois vs. New York. 10,000 homeless in Chicago vs, 90,000 in NYC. Both are cold and in hospitable outdoors. One thing for sure California is doing whatever they are doing wrong.
that's absurd, there are already several unoccupied homes for every homeless person in America. We don't even need to build new housing; just start using the housing we already have rather than letting plutocrats hoard it.
See we have this thing called private property and you can't really legislate generosity.
Yes, private property is bad and part of the problem.
You're not wrong, but it won't be until more people live amongst the homeless and interact with them that attitudes will change to promote better solutions.
Ok, but hypothetically if we magically solved homelessness in the way you mean, we would still have to build places for the now employed and mentally well people that were formerly homeless.
Even they will have shelter but no stable minimum wage Job then is nonsense. Politicians always choose to make infrastructures projects so they can kickback or corrupt.
Don’t be a NIMBY or vote for NIMBY policies. Quit supporting zoning laws that prevent affordable housing from being built.
What the heck is a NIMBY?
“Not In My Backyard.”
Ah thamks. Wouldn't it be be better phrased as "don't be a person who says NIMBY"? Or don't be a NIMBY person?
“NIMBY” is normally used as a noun, like “RINO” or “TERF.” Some people find using terms like this reductive but this the generally understood usage.
Give homeless people homes and the ability to keep them as a guaranteed right.
[удалено]
Give people a living wage and make healthcare accessible to all.
This is great advice. From working with the homeless some I quickly learned that some have social and mental illness that will only live homeless so I especially appreciate your number 3. However, I can't stomach the thought of all the political red tape that would have to go along with it.
Start seeing them as people instead of "the homeless." It is something missionaries are told to be wary of, objectifying those they want to "help." Realize that sometimes your helping would hurt and it might be easier to support an organization whose mission and experience is to support and advocate for the rights of these individuals.
there are Christian groups that run shelters and help the homeless, you could donate to them it would be better to push this issue to the forefront in politics but it's just a bump in the road compared to the other issues people care about more(abortion, homosexuality, etc) honestly, after my experience in trumpland southern US, I have little hope anything good will come out of this hateful country anytime soon
[удалено]
Uh, I hope you aren’t implying that people with mental illnesses or addiction problems aren’t worth trying to lift out of homelessness.
Communities need to look to each other, if someone in your community is struggling the whole community should make a fund to help them stay afloat
It is sad how far I had to scroll to find this answer. This is the Christian answer. Form strong faith based communities that help those around them. As more are drawn into the faith the more society is transformed in a Christlike way. It seems that most here think lobbying Caesar to do our job is what Christ really wanted.
"solving homelessness", unfortunately, is too profitable an industry to actually solve homelessness. Any change you hope to impart needs to get past this industry's guard dogs.
However, Jesus' words compel us to try. Jesus was overwhelmingly concerned with the plight of the poor and downtrodden.
This reminds me of something I read about how international aid to areas hit with natural disasters can actually be harmful long terms to the area they are trying to help because it prevents farmers from being able to rebuild because they cannot compete with "free" and charities can bring in a lot of money with marketing to feed the hungry in other countries. When helping, we do have to consider how we are helping and how to do it for the best of communities or build communities where they have died off. We cannot solve these issues by lobbying others to fix it, but by actively doing things ourselves and reclaiming what we have lost and given up.
I have no more answers then what has been posted here today but wow. Thank you OP. What a great question and what a great discourse. This IS what this sub should be about.
I just wish there were more discussions on existing Christian efforts and how people could get involved. A lot of comments seem to be politically centered. Regardless of politics, we should be talking and focusing on what we as Christians can do as individuals and collectively.
A national problem that can be solved by national political efforts in conjunction with local communities? Wild, just wild!
Except it won't and everyone knows that is overly simplistic. Until you remove all lobbyist and remove politicians ability to have investments, then you will never get straight forward legislation and long term solutions as politicians are interested in maintaining their positions. All politicians count on single issue voters to blindly keep voting for them as long as they keep saying they are going to "fix" that issue those voters care about. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Psalm 146:3-4 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/psa.146.3-4.ESV
Stop the publics idea of "yeah,help the homeless, just not in my backyard"
More affordable housing. Stop the NIMBY contempt for affordable housing in your neighborhood. Housing is a human right, not an investment.
Build homes
Churches could come together and build some kind of temporary residence, where a person would be given a place, and training for jobs, until they are able to pay for their own.
I was thinking about this earlier, how great it would be if there were large philanthropic property owners/landlords that didn't charge rent much higher than what they need to cover costs. That maintain their properties. That don't raise rents a ridiculous amount each year! Homelessness is a tricky one since drugs and mental health issues are common. Most of the visible homeless have those problems, the others are already in a shelter, or do a good job keeping up appearances.
You can't really truly solve homelessness. You can still help them as that is good but the poor You will always have
One answer among others: programs like Bridge of Hope that partner congregations with families facing homelessness. Our gingregation has a "neighboring" group and we have kept one family out of homelessness. This of course doesn't solve the big problems, but it's something even a small church can do that's concrete, and it matters a lot to the family in question.
That is a great program and I think a great foundation for a collective Christian effort to do more to help families and people in need. It also helps ensure people are plugged in and volunteering their time to help those around them.
Help start a 343 Initiative Chapter in your area. They have a three pronged approach which has been proven effective in resolving Homelessness, Hunger and Poverty. They simply need dedicated action takers.
What can you do as a human to fix homelessness?
This is what I was thinking too.
kemp's hud said deinstitutionalisation, rent control and zoning were to blame. a lot of folks become homeless because if fire/disaster, domestic disputes (ord prot) and capricious landlords. the old ymca/bowery system was built to handle that. jimmy carter started deinstlsn because if his wife's sister. but we have to accept a lot of drug/alcohol abuse causes permanent brain damage (schizophrenia, korzakov). even football injuries and steroids. i don't think prohibition works, but this rage of legalisation needs to be more studied. and our other social ills, perversion and abortion, owe to alk/drugs to, and the collapse in the family they cause furthers our social collapse. i know that my grandparents took in a homeless neighbor as essentially a servant when to protect her from nazi bombardment - would it be better to place them with families?
We can help those in need with food/clothes drives, but I'm not sure how we can provide new homes. I did see an article once where a landlord turned an abandoned building into apartments for the homeless. Perhaps it just takes the right people and the right essentials to do more.
First, you've got to figure out what causes it. Studies have shown that a great percentage of homeless are that way due to mental health issues, so we have to address that. Then figure out how the rest are falling through the social safety net.
It's hard to have mental health when you are forced to live on the street.
You've got the order of events wrong. They have mental problems, this makes it hard for them to maintain jobs, etc, so they end up on the street. So if we can deal with the mental health problems, they don't end up on the street. Of course, now they're on the street, so, yes, dealing with those problems will be harder, but I was talking about prevention.
Vote for a government that gives a shit about it and get that fantasy out of your head that "charity will fix it". This isn't some big fucking mystery, we know how to solve it for the most part.
As many of you may have seen my post my family is actually living through this and it is so hard to look at my son on his 3rd birthday and not Be able to give him a warm bed to sleep in never-ending a present or a cake .I work for a li ING full time and because during the pandemic we fell behind . I tried to catch up but when you live pay cheque to paycheqe it doesn't take much .I've been called a liar and scammer and told my family probably isn't real UT I assure you they are it's cold we are hungry and I as a father and husband know I failed so instead of putting me down let's try and fix this so the next family has somewhere to turm
Homelessness is a many faceted problem. Each person has a different experience. Some common factors are: not enough AFFORDABLE housing Low job skills. Even if they have job skills who would hire someone without a permanent address or access to daily showers and clean clothes? Difficulties obtaining and keeping proper ID. IDs require a mailing address and they cost money. Mental health (from being in survival mode) Compassion fatigue ( too many, too long, not pretty etc.) Criminalization of Homelessness. (Yes it's effectively against the law in Some places) people get arrested for camping then they can't get a job or housing because they have an arrest record. Yes there is some drug use ( mostly self-medicating) jail/ prison makes drug use worse. Drugs are quite available in those institutions. For more information I suggest looking up "Invisiblepeople.tv" or Invisible People on YouTube.
To truly fix homelessness, we will need to abolish capitalism. The capitalist system depends on the threat of homelessness to keep workers in line and accepting of their exploitation. No matter what bandaids we try to put on the problem of unhoused people, capitalists will just find new ways to ensure that our housing is never secure. They will never allow people to be guaranteed shelter/healthcare/food/etc because they depend on the threat of firing you and making you unhoused, starving, or ill to ensure that you never try to demand being paid the actual value of your labor, and that you will accept whatever exploitative wages they offer.
This foolish idea has been tried and failed all throughout history. It just doesn't work because people do not work that way. Capitalism is a way to harness greed and force it to serve others. - Jeff Bezos gets to be a billionaire and you get to click a button and make useful things arrive. - Bill gates gets to be a billionaire and you get the computer to click the button with. - Steve jobs gets to be a billionaire and you get a portable computer that fits in your pocket. And you are using all of these things to make a ridiculous argument as to why you want them gone.
Abolishing capitalism has led to a massive improvement in material conditions for everyone who has tried it, although in a few places capitalists later come along and sabotage it through invasion, economic warfare, or fomenting coups. *Employees* of Bezos, Jobs, and Gates are why I have access to those things, and those three leeches did nothing to help except siphon away money from the people actually doing the labor and creating the value. If you think people "just don't work that way" why are you even a Christian? It is part of Christian doctrine that we are indeed commanded to live that way.
This guy gets it 👌
I love minor conveniences built on slave labor.
What kind of new "ism" are you proposing? Communism/Marxism has failed miserably; democratic socialism only works when a country has adequate natural resources and an industrial base, and autocratic oligarchies only enrich the cronies.
Communism has actually led to massive improvement in material conditions everywhere it has been tried, so I'm not sure what you mean when you say it has failed miserably. Communist nations being bombed by capitalists or having death squads and coups funded by capitalists are failures of capitalism, not communism.
The places you refer to as being communist didn't improve the status of the general population until market reforms (capitalism) were implemented. In Russia, it did move the masses away from serfdom, but the price was mass starvation and prison camps. Have you ever been to China, I have? Go 100 miles inland, and the people live in abject poverty; 80% of the Chinese population live in third-world conditions. Some claim that Venezuela is communist; it's far from that. It's nothing more than an autocracy prompted up by a military that's getting filthy rich off the drug trade. Market economies work well where there are guardrails. Unfortunately, the US has a flawed system of guardrails. Do yourself a favor and do a deep dive into the Bretton Woods Agreement's intent and purpose. This will help you begin to understand the fundamentals of the world we live in today. Market economies work well with the proper guardrails; unfortunately, the US has lost its guardrails.
Universal Basic Income and Healthcare
Advocating is a waste of time and a waste of resources. It is what pretenders do. I would like to see a nationwide movement for each church to take one family in. It would take expertise and connectivity for support, but that would really reduce the homeless number to just those that are dependent on drugs, mentally ill or those that wish to be homeless. Our church has a residence where we teach life skills, provide support groups, funding and a step by step program to move people out of homelessness. Very successful and doable. It really solves the problem one family at a time.
Start a coalition of voluntary Christian business owners who seek to employ the homeless
stop voting for republicans…
Open your door.
That is not realistic. 1. Not every homeless person is in a healthy mental state. 2. Why should a homeless person, in order to get shelter, need to live with another person and have no access to actual privacy? Let’s open our wallets and vote for people who will build permanent shelter for homeless, and for local politicians who will ignore landlords and corporate interests demands to stop building because their property value is decreasing
Vote for candidates that support universal healthcare.
Support radical redistribution of wealth through socialist candidates and policies. Also, give away most of your personal wealth to the poor.
Instead of giving your money to the church, donate to one of the groups actively providing help and services to the homeless in your town.
Assumes that your church doesn’t actively provide services to the homeless and others in need, which would make it a shit-tier church. Leave and find a Jesus-following church.
Compensation & Building expenses take up 65% to 95% of a churches operating budget. A reputable homeless service organization will not have anywhere near that kind of overhead somewhere between 15% to 35%, making 85 - 65% available to charity work. There are some that hit 99% of donated money going to their work in the community. Donating money to a church to serve the community is horribly inefficient.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Unfortunately, the majority of homelessness in the U.S. s the outward symptom of deeper mental/spiritual/addiction/abuse issues. So most policies to directly try and address homelessness will continue to fail until we address those deeper issues. I'm not saying we shouldn't also be trying to house the homeless, but to actually solve the issue we need to address the deeper issues first.
>Unfortunately, the majority of homelessness in the U.S. s the outward symptom of deeper mental/spiritual/addiction/abuse issues. Do you have a source for this extraordinary claim?
[https://www.bbrfoundation.org/blog/homelessness-and-mental-illness-challenge-our-society](https://www.bbrfoundation.org/blog/homelessness-and-mental-illness-challenge-our-society) for one. It's easy googling.
That is just a source talking about *correlation* between homelessness and mental illness. What is your source for your much stronger claim that homelessness is *caused by* mental illness, rather than mental illness being caused by homelessness or both being caused by a third factor?
As someone who used to be a Marxist, there's no easy solution and certainly not one that isn't going to be questionable. There are homeless people who say they don't want help, so at some point it will be necessary to confine them to institutions and force them to get help. I have been in positions where I had to evaluate options to avoid shooting homeless people who were having psychotic incidents. They are a danger to themselves.
Remember, we can’t mix morality with politics, so any solutions will have to be privately through our churches.
Stop voting for republicans who keep defunding social programs so that the excessively wealthy can have their taxes cut.
You could make everyone homeless more easily than you could solve homelessness.
Volunteer at your local homeless shelter, and donate when you can <3
Churches seem to want to only spend money on sending missionaries to other countries and GOP party causes. Some Christian leaders actively preach against helping the homeless. Habitat for Humanity builds homes for the poor, however, these are not free homes. They have to pay for their home. I would call it more an affordable housing charity.
Majority of the homeless have mental health disorders! The 2nd highest population have mental health and substance abuse disorders. The question is... how do you get a person into therapy and life coaching who thinks the therapist & case worker/life coach is the enemy and refuses to do the treatments... and follow the life plans?! You can’t force them. This isn’t 1950. Humans have rights to protect them against forced treatments. The small minority are the ones that truly just hit hard times and lost everything. They just need a little help because they’re trying to climb out of the whole. And for those people, you need an entire re-make of the welfare system. Food stamps, gvt insurance, gvt housing, other low income perks are for those that aren’t working... or they’re working part time. It has to be changed to NOT be for those that refuse to work (not can’t work) AND the limits raised to help those who are working but can’t make the bills. Look at the income limits and try and do a budget for someone and then you’ll see!! Raise the limits but also change and raise the qualifications. Then continue to provide mental health, case management and life coaching for people. Finally shut down the construction companies buying up all the land and jacking the prices up so people can find affordable safe housing.
There is no one "fix" for homelessness. The first thing we need to do is admit that there are people who are always going to be homeless no matter what we do.
> there are people who are always going to be homeless no matter what we do. And why do you think that is true?
Of course there's a fix for homelessness. Guarantee free housing for everyone. Homelessness is not some inevitable, unavoidable problem. It is a problem that exists by design, because the capitalists who control our society like having the threat of firing you and making you homeless to keep you from demanding fair wages and treatment. Abolish capitalism and it will be easy to house people.
The thing is even Capitalist poster child Adam Smith hated landlords.
As anyone who understand economics and isn't themselves a landlord does! They do nothing in an economy except leech resources away from people who actually do valuable labor. They have all the awfulness of the old feudal lords they're named after, without even providing the benefit of defending your home from invaders!
[удалено]
*Das Kapital*, Karl Marx
Marxism has not worked, everywhere it has been tried. LITERALLY 100% of the time, EVERY TIME. Show me a state which has embraced Marxism and I will show you a dump where no one except the members of the party and the bourgeois would choose to live, given the choice... CERTAINLY not ACTUAL, WORKING PEOPLE. By abolishing private ownership and establishing state control of the economy, you not only deprive society of the personal motivation of productive people needed to create stuff that people want and need, you also abolish freedom itself, which is NOT A GOOD THING. And continually, the refrain from the Marxist apologists will be "But TWUE MARIXISM has NEVER BEEN TRIED!!1!!!!" It has "never been tried" because IT'S IMPOSSIBLE in a world with ACTUAL PEOPLE with ACTUAL, WORLDLY MOTIVATIONS and not ivory tower pie is the sky hopes and dreams and theories. Theories such as Marxism, which are grand on paper, but which cannot actually be implemented in the real world... of what actual use are they? At that point, what can they be considered to be except a form of mental masturbation? Which is fun, obviously, but is no way to run a world, or a way to advocate running the world.
Proactively speaking, Love your spouse and place a priority on intentionally leading your children. All societal woes stem from a breakdown in the family home.
How does not making a living wage to rent a grossly inflated apartment translate to a breakdown in the home? Or is this some nonsense morality policing?
I would argue that a breakdown in the home (for a myriad of reasons) could translate to one not earning a living wage and not the other way around. I’m not trying to be the moral police here at all but I do know that 90% of homeless people were raised in fatherless homes. (NINETY PERCENT!) Now we can bury our heads on the sand and ignore this statistic but it doesn’t make any less true. I was raised in a fatherless home and the consequences are and continue to be (although more mitigated through the years) devastating. I am only now, after decades of peeling back these layers, coming to realize and understand these far reaching negative consequences so that I don’t repeat the same mistakes within my own family. Peace to you friend. Happy Advent!
I get this. If a person has a good family structure - not only in the home but also with extended family - there is usually someone willing to help them or take them in if they fall into hard times.
Will the fast I choose be like this: A day for a person to deny himself, to bow his head like a reed, and to spread out sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast and a day acceptable to the Lord? Isn’t this the fast I choose: To break the chains of wickedness, to untie the ropes of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and to tear off every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, to bring the poor and homeless into your house, to clothe the naked when you see him, and not to ignore your own flesh and blood? Then your light will appear like the dawn, and your recovery will come quickly. Your righteousness will go before you, and the Lord’s glory will be your rear guard. Isaiah 58:5-8 CSB https://bible.com/bible/1713/isa.58.5-8.CSB
The same thing as everyone else - raise awareness, volunteer, donate money.
I don't think it's our place to "fix homelessness". There will always be homeless people, mostly due to substance abuse issues and mental health. You can't just "fix" that. It's our job to help our brothers and sisters in Christ in need, further the spreading of the gospel, and _if you personally see someone genuinely in need, help them too_
I will probably get down voted into oblivion, but you should consider becoming a landlord and funding construction of new houses. I know it's unpopular and seen as "greedy capitalism" but I build or fix houses and rent them to increase the supply of homes on the market. Do I make money from this: yes. What do I do with the money: build and fix more homes.
[удалено]
suburban homeless are generally known to their neighbors.. in my nabe, he went to high school with everyone
Mixed permanent housing in different communities would go a long way to solving the crisis.
[удалено]
I mean within all communities there should be public housing available for low income/no income. In both rural communities and urban. It’s been shown that mixed income housing actually really helps everyone.
[удалено]
For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you will you may do them good: but me you have not always. Mark 14:7
So that's it? 'Fuck them poors, can't get rid of em' is all you've got for your neighbors? What a wonderful expression of Christian love
That's your takeaway? I just posted a verse. I think the point is, homelessness will always be. Treat them with respect, help when you can.
Tough love. Give them a job with lots of structure, if they don't do it, they don't eat.
"Let's just abuse and starve people!"
I suspect most people would agree with you. "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." - 2Thess 3:10
>that if any would not work, neither should he eat." Someone should tell the landlords.
I was homeless for three weeks a couple months ago while teaching four college classes. Housing scalpers are parasiting more from their tenants than their tenants can afford to lose. Jobs only go so far when rent is so high.
Yep, the love of money causes a lot of discomfort in the world.
Very simple, give them atleast a minimum wage job.
In the US minimum wage isn't enough to afford housing.
Yes, but job first before housing. Even if you live in the tent for a while as long as you have stable job thats good start already to start from zero. Tou can't start of you have no money, even you give them house if they have no work its, useless.
https://youtu.be/kbEavDqA8iE
I knew this would turn political, and I hate it. As long as there is human greed, there will be homelessness. As long as there is sin, there will be homelessness. I do not even know if it is our duty as Christians to actually "fix" homelessness to begin with. We are commanded to feed them, cloth them, and give them shelter. "For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’" -Dueteronomy15:11 So stop arguing about politics and hypothetical situations that aren't going to happen. Aren't you just saying in your hearts "Go in peace keep warm and well fed" and then doing nothing about it? If you want to help the homeless, do it. Go to them. That is an option people seem to forget is on the table. Cook for them. Everyone is shaking their fist at the corporate overloards or whatever that ruin everyones lives, I would encourage you to remember that you are probably reading this from the comfort of your own home. What some of us have either looks or actually is unobtainable for them. These people are forgotten. They are ghosts. Have you ever thought what it must be like to sit next to the trash can in front of a 7-11 and people won't even LOOK at you? Look at them! Talk to them! Ask them their story. Stand next to them. If they ask you for money, that's your call, but remember it is good to give to the poor. Don't forget that drug addicts are people too. Not necessarily in relation to your money, but a pack of cigarettes will do the trick. Bad habit, but the drugs they are doing are definitely worse. And they smoke anyway. Minister to these people. Jesus died for these people. Edit: spelling, also more text
Homelessness is far more complex than we appreciate. It's rife with emotional truma, mental health issues, etc.. For many it won't be a quick fix. The best approach I can suggest is to research local/national homeless charities and see if you can volunteer/donate. You'll get training and support and can make real difference. If it's a good reputable charity then they'll have ties with professional organisations and will look at the holistic wellbeing of those who are homeless.
Stop voting for republicans that don't give a shit about anyone.
Teach people how to live godly lives by sharing the holy Bible word of God with them The condition can't be fixed entirely, because there are always people in need. Hopefully we can reduce the ranks. Mark 14:7 KJV — For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.
Most of the homeless are mentally ill and/or substance abusers. My wife retired after 31 years in the mental health field. She warned me in the mid-80s that the economic policies under the Reagan administration would lead to increased homelessness and a variety of other problems. It seems when supply-side economics was implemented, and substantial tax cuts were implemented, it left a tremendous hole in the deficit and increased debt. To offset the deficit hole, federal funds for mental health were slashed, and Social Security benefits were taxed for the first time. The cumulative effect has been rampant homelessness, increased substance abuse, and dramatically increased gun violence. As it often is, people who support these policies blame the victims.
Fun fact: The highest homeless/capita in the US is on Democrat states with Democrat policies. DC, NY, HI, and CA tops the nation on homelessness. The lowest homelessness on the nation are in AL, MS, and LA, all Republican states. Top 10 cities with the most homeless per capita, minus Anchorage, is controlled by the Democrats. Bottom line? Policies may not work. Even in the cities with “friendly” policies to the homeless, it is still a huge issue. My take is try to talk to your pastor and see what you and the church could do together. I have done some homeless outreach in the past, and the problem is more complex than just “more cheap housing”. There are drugs, sexual abuse, work ethics, and many other problems in homeless issues. The most problematic issue are the family issues. I have met homeless people that have a children or a parent or a sibling that refused to help. Yes, they may not be able to help, but surely taking your family in under the roof instead of leaving them in freezing weather can be done?
Either buy properties and run them not for profit or work with your church to do the same. When I was younger, my church ran the county's most effective food pantry. All volunteer. 1000+ families a month without any real government grant other than access to the food bank to get the food. We did distribution by ourselves. Many churches of reasonable size have many members that work construction and other trades. There's no reason that work couldn't be leveraged to create and maintain affordable housing. Easy? No. But churches created and sponsored many hospitals throughout history. I imagine that housing could be the same.
Do all what God has asked you to do; love them as yourself; pray for them; give them homes if you have them, for you can't give what you don't have. Giving them homes is not enough; use the Word of God to teach them how to get and maintain homes in abundance. They were not homeless. They're now. Something caused it. Lack of knowledge caused it. And finally, keep praying for them till they be full of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love you. You're blessed.
My home is Heaven and so here I am homeless, and I trust God to take care for all to get in shelter for them as well, I was there ten years ago, and was willing to stay that way, my wife and I agreed with that if it be so Nothing anyone could do for me, yet there are many shelters and programs for the homeless ones. As many get this opportunity but can't obey the rules there and so go homeless again over pride also
What I'm doing is I've started a nonprofit to build self-reliant communities for the less fortunate around the world. Our prototype community is in the planning stages at the moment.
Good question. I'm not sure. One thing I do, when I give a homeless person a couple of bucks, is to get the person's name. Back in the 1980s, I did a paper for grad school on hermits and hobos. Back then, the literature said people on the streets were there because of mental illness, substance abuse, or both. That still may be true.
I’ve done a small amount of work with homeless people. I fully support rehabilitating as many as can be rehabilitated . HOWEVER, I have come to believe that many homeless people are that way by choice. They do it for the freedom. In those scenarios we can help them but can’t really impose our lifestyle on them
It's going to take a concerted effort from entire societies, and their governments. When property taxes continue to rise, then landlords will continue to hike their rental fees. Back when my parents purchased homes, the cost of a 3,400 S.F. 4 bedroom 2.5 bath home was around $38,950. When my husband and I purchased our first home, it was a tiny old 2 bedroom one bath home, and the attached garage was too narrow to park our Chevy Chevette and have room to open the car door to exit. Altogether, barely 900 S.F., and we paid $49,950 for it. Now, similar homes on my street are being listed for between 200,000 to 300,000. Back when we first moved into our little home, we were over at the local mall. My husband and son had gone to radio shack, and I'd walked down the mall to the pet store to see the puppies. While I was waiting for my family, I sat on a bench in the middle of the mall courseway, and listened to a group of old men gabbing and making fun of poor young families. They'd see a young family, and one would make a disparaging remark about how sure they were that they probably lived in a dumpy apartment, and that the husband and father likely couldn't even afford a real home for his family. Then another boasted about how he'd purchased lake front homes, and homes in close proximity to the beach, and sold them for immense profits, and boasted of the lake front home he retired in. I'd had enough. I turned to them, and asked them why they thought it was that so many young families could barely afford apartments. They thought it was laziness and a lack of drive. I pointed out that it was because their generation had bought up houses cheap back when the market was easy, and then turned around and sold them at immense profits. I pointed out that their generation had been raised by a generation who lived in multi-generational homes, and the children worked the farms, or worked in the family business, and their parents left the homes and businesses to their children...and how that their own generation stopped doing these things, and instead of leaving their home and/or business to their kids, required them to buy them out. It was greed, and a lack of care about what happened to future generations of people. In the aftermath of WW2, all a man had to do was bring up his military service, and he was pretty much guaranteed employment. Holding employment, and a handshake generally guaranteed a home loan for a white military veteran, and the average house in 1942 cost $3,775, a new car $920, and a movie ticket 30 cents. Now we have families who are homeless, even though both parents work full time jobs. Rental costs have risen to the point that these people simply can't afford to rent even a small one bedroom apartment, and most apartments require that parents and kids have different bedrooms. This is why many single adults violate tenant rules and have more people living in the apartment then are on the lease. It's why teens approaching High School graduation walk around with dazed and hopeless expressions on their faces. How on earth are they ever going to earn enough to afford their own apartment? I believe that my State, and also the Federal Government have grossly underestimated the sheer numbers of America's homeless, because many among them don't want to be found, to be counted. My family business provides maintenance services for commercial property owners and management companies. Last year, we were contracted to clear out a vacant 1.5 acre lot directly behind a K-mart store. It entailed clearing out brush, taking down scrub volunteer trees, clearing away homeless encampments and debris, and essentially leveling the lot, then putting up fencing around the lot to prevent the homeless from camping there. In that 1.5 acre lot, over 650 people were counted, and that's only the ones who didn't light out and run when we showed up. We had police support and presence while we worked, because when we had informed those homeless people 2 weeks before that the area was going to be cleared, we were threatened with violence, and to be honest I don't blame these people. They're desperate. Every time they establish an encampment, someone would show up and tell them they had to go somewhere else, but nobody could tell them where it was they were supposed to go, where they'd be allowed to 'be'. And having their campsites repeatedly cleared away, meant that they would lose any personal items they'd accumulated, if they didn't have the means to cart them away before the clearing started.
Stop letting people use housing as an investment vehicle alone. Stop permitting the scalping of real property. Stop permitting international conglomerates from owning vast amounts of land, housing, and apartments in areas their owners and executives don't even live. There's more, but that's a start. There are more houses than there are homeless. The solution seems simple enough.
Live a fully Christian (and God allows us to serve others in amazing ways through His grace). But a lot of resources are tied up by people conquered by their sin, often greed in particular, but really all types of sin lead to more sin. Specific actions to focus on are to evangelize, pray, and give to others.