Housing Helps

The Buffalo News reported on Saturday (12/26) and in an editorial Op Ed today (12/28) about the success of “Housing First” - an initiative that takes the chronically homeless and most “at risk” homeless and places them in private housing at the public's expense.

First – the positive: Studies from Salt Lake City (see Mother Jones for a great expose on homelessness) and Los Angeles show the homeless are put into permanent housing, it helps them with all their other problems. To be clear on this – the people placed in the public/private housing have a social worker assigned to them to check up on them, see if they have any mental or physical needs that require assistance, receive counseling for drug or alcohol abuse or mental issues, etc. There is plenty of oversight to make sure that these people are doing OK.

The benefits: People that are given housing recover better. They “become more responsible” faster, clean their lives up, are able to get jobs, and become more stable and productive members of society.

Those that are mentally ill (or whatever the current euphemism for that is) receive the mental health care that they would have normally received in the mental health facilities that President Reagan shut down because it was going to save taxpayers money. (It never did . They wound up in prisons and at greater cost to the taxpayers.)

The criticisms.

Why are we using our tax dollars to pay for private housing? Why not provide better funding for public housing or re-open the mental health facilities that were closed back in the 1980's? Granted, the City of Buffalo is negotiating the rents down from the market value, but why are we dependent upon the private market for something that the government could do for less? And rather than having social workers running all over the place to take care of these people, they would be in a centralized place that would provide for more immediate care and needs.

I suppose this is because the private sector can not make a profit off of public housing. Fiscal conservatives see the government as a problem and the private sector as the solution. Sad to say, unemployment that leads to homelessness is caused more by the private sector and its drive for more profits than by the government.

Why are we targeting only the 25 most at risk at a time? The city claims that there are only 400 homeless in the area. Go to the Buffalo City Mission and St Luke's Mission of Mercy and see how many people they are serving. How many families they are providing shelter to. (Ed note – these are two great places to donate money and food to. They are non-sectarian and not for profit. I know these two off the top of my head. I am sure there are other organizations that help the homeless as well.)

To me, giving shelter to one person is good and needs to be praised. What of the families? Does a family of 4 or 5 count? How are they ranked? Homeless children are at high risk for drug abuse and exploitation in prostitution. City Mission and St Luke's are temporary solutions and fill up quickly. We (they) need bigger and more permanent solutions.

I will say that this is a good first step, we need to recognize that housing is a right. People have a right to the safety and stability that housing provides. As socialists we demand:

-better public housing to serve the needs of the poor

-better support for emergency services that can meet the needs of the homeless.

We can do this by seizing the houses that are currently unoccupied/ abandoned by the sub-prime loan crisis. The banks are neglecting to take care of the properties in many instances, so seize the properties, provide the materials to Habitat for Humanity and other similar programs and organizations to fix up the properties, and move the homeless in.

Who pays for these renovations? The banks. Let the CEOs, presidents, vice presidents, and board of directors take a pay cut. They created the crisis. They stayed out of jail. Let them pay for the crisis they paid out of their own pockets.

It's really simple math to me. Empty house + homeless people = full house. With the appropriate oversight and assistance, the people will be better off and able to stay off the streets and stay in the housing. This stabilizes the neighborhood.

That is something capitalism promises and true to its history, never delivers.