The Housing Crisis
Through my time traveling to various cities and states across the country, one thing that seems to remain the same – homelessness. Particularly in cities with high populations. In some places, it looks like a more prominent concern than others. There may be tents on side roads, or you might see a family with children who need a bit of help with food. I wish this issue were an easy fix. People must have access to basic life needs like shelter, food, and clean water.
This housing crisis and homelessness issue is so significant that I couldn’t possibly cover every aspect of the problem in one short article. It is an issue near to my heart as I have known people close to me experiencing this throughout my life.
The COVID pandemic has done a lot to shed light on the homeless issue because it is often displayed in the media. Like how could someone stay safe at home when they did not have a home?
About 600,000 – 1.5 million people are homeless across the United States. This number is an underestimate because many people go unaccounted for. Still, about 20% of them are children. Homelessness isn’t always apparent and takes various forms; some individuals are literally homeless or at risk of being homeless.
According to a recent Census Bureau survey, over 10 million Americans are experiencing housing insecurity, and about 5.4 million are expecting to confront foreclosure or eviction soon. Included in all this is over 78 million people reporting challenges with keeping up with basic expenses.
Let’s look deeper into some of the many factors that play into the issue of homelessness.
The personal reasons that may occur at the same time of homelessness often lead to stigma for individuals experiencing homelessness because the individual’s choices are not the only reason. The general societal stereotype of people experiencing homelessness gets paired with drug/alcohol use and mental illness.
There are also structural reasons for homelessness: unemployment and poverty, the housing market, the structure of the economy, large-scale social policies, and strategic renting requirements that often ignore a potential renter’s current abilities/skills/motivation to afford the applied for housing. Structural inequalities include redlining, racial discrimination, and the generational effects these policies have held for Black and Brown individuals. Given that people with lower incomes are at higher risk of homelessness, systemic institutional discrimination and limited affordable housing are related to more inadequate living conditions.
While these personal reasons may still occur in persons experiencing homelessness, homelessness might occur due to these issues combined with the compound effects of structural inequalities, coping through the stress of homelessness, or other psychological traumas with substances.
Affordable housing
Finding housing and keep up with housing payments are out of reach for so many people, which is ironic because, in California for example, new large apartment complexes can be seen being built every couple of months. It’s like telling a child they can’t have any candy, but then go to a candy store with all their favorites right at reach.
Until housing is made affordable, the process for reducing the impact of homelessness can become more solvable. But the issue is not simple. It’s based on the economic housing market prices, interest rates, and employment wages. The competition for housing the people will make the rates competitive with those around them. As the housing market prices continue to increase, the minimum/average wage for most workers cannot keep up where people have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.
Unemployment
The effects of joblessness have impacted people’s ability to pay for housing. The lack of ability to find acceptance into an apartment as landlords fear that unemployment insurance payments are not enough to sustain a lease term agreement. There are opportunities to obtain unemployment benefits, though one needs to have been previously employed and paid into such a system before they can receive. Then even with that, the unemployment system has its flaws. Someone needs to be unemployed or partially unemployed because of the pandemic-related instability. But if someone is working partially and receive an amount that still won’t cover the cost of living expenses, they will say you’re making too much money.
Progress is still on the way
Housing Programs and Support
In the last five years, interventions for permanent housing have increased by 450%. In the last year, support for shelter programs and obtaining housing support programs have also increased twofold to help slow the spread of COVID-19, give people safe shelter, exercise social distancing, and provide some health care resources.
Many new housing support programs include hotels used to house individuals and families experiencing homelessness. Shelter capacities needed to be reduced to allow for social distancing, so more emergency shelters have opened to help solve this. Moreover, the programs that have housed individuals and families in hotels also provide more services to help people with the resources, support, and steps to obtain permanent housing.
In addition to new housing support programs, renters can now apply for federal rental assistance in many states.
Stimulus Payments and Eviction Moratorium
The impact of the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief bill on housing may be seen in more ways than just money. The amount of money placed into the economy to help with housing efforts can be seen in the following examples:
- To help stimulate the economy, people received their third stimulus check earlier this year to help renters and homeowners needed.
- Since there was an emergency ban on evictions, it extends the eviction moratorium (set by the CDC) until June 30th, 2021. They are preventing evictions to tenants who cannot make rental payments—stopping evictions intended to slow the spread of COVID-19. At the same time, funds were also set aside to provide legal assistance to households facing foreclosure or eviction. Rental assistance is set to help landlords as well. Right now, the average amount of rent back-pay is about $1,740 – $6,000 per household for about 11.4 – 30 million renters. The eviction moratorium has had a positive impact on protecting families and households across the United States to keep their homes during the pandemic.
- $30 billion of funding is allocated for emergency energy, water, and rental assistance for households in need. In addition to $5 billion of funding for emergency aid to people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
- The unemployment benefits were reduced to $300 (previously $400), but still extended to September 6th. Families could receive more money per dependent which could lead to receiving more assistance than previous stimulus bills.
There is no one type of homelessness since it does not all look the same. It’s going to takes efforts in various aspects of the economy and society to fix this. Making housing more affordable is not the only solution. Many barriers lead to a person becoming homeless. Often, many of these obstacles create a massive stigma on the people and families experiencing homelessness and generate stereotypes for what society views as homelessness. More and more programs are being developed to help with this issue. As the world and life continue to get more complicated, the resources we need become more complex. But when you see someone on the street without a home, instead of judging with stereotypes, maybe ask: How did you get here? Or, How can I help? Because you never know what another person has experienced, having a place to sleep at night is something to be grateful for.
B Strong,
Aysha