Homeless People Are Not The Problem -- But You Might Be
According to Homeless World Cup, the last time a global survey was attempted an estimated 100 million people were homeless worldwide.
100 million people is actually not much in the grand scheme of things. Google just announced that Google Photos now has 100 million monthly users. Multiply the population of New York City by 5 and you get 100 million, give or take a borough. And that's a global number. For the United States, the number sits less than 600,000 homeless. Canada counts more than 235,000 homeless. Together that's almost 100,000 people less than the population of Austin, Texas.
Should be a simple fix, right?
Of course, these numbers don't account for people who might be homeless for only a few nights. Homelessness is difficult to track. The difference between point-in-time numbers and annual estimates also vary greatly. In 2014 The National Center on Family Homelessness found that "2.5 million children are homeless annually in the US".
But whatever the actual number of people living without a fixed residence, the general consensus is that something needs to be done about homelessness. Something should be done for the people who are often veterans, mentally ill, or youths who end up on the street. After the economic crisis of 2008, the number of homeless families shot up. Whether or not the homeless have families, or dealing with personal issues, or are homeless for only a night -- isn't it just human decency to want them to have a safe place to lay their head?
There seems to be a prevailing belief in certain circles that some (or maybe most) of the homeless choose their life. If they live on the streets, or bump from shelter to shelter, that's their right. And perhaps that's true, as there are people who avoid shelters due to fear of safety or illness or a plethora of other reasons. But why, when according to reports by Amnesty International there are about five vacant properties per homeless person, would we insist on shoving people wholesale into a shelter anyway?
Maybe it's because many of these properties are foreclosed houses owned by banks, and banks have never really been known for being all that concerned about people. Or because if people react badly to a shelter going up in their neighborhood, how would they react if the homeless actually began to move in next door?
It seems strange that in 2015, in developed countries -- and especially in North America -- a problem such as homelessness still persists. Personally, I think it is less that we do not have the ability to fix this problem, but more the prevailing mentality that keeps stuck where it is.
Where I'm from, there's this prevailing idea that you're only worth what you can do for yourself. Times get hard? Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. No one should get something for free that me and mine had to work for. So let the houses stand empty. Let the homeless freeze to death or be preyed upon or never get treated for the mental illnesses that could be keeping them where they are.
Before anything truly monutmental happens to help the homeless, we're going to have to utterly change this idea that people shouldn't be helped because they didn't work hard enough to earn the help.
