Getting the homeless counseling, drug treatment, job training and jobs, as soon they come into the helter for help is one solution for improving the problem of homelessness. Creating a program that not only house the homeless, but gives them a schedule to abide by, providing drug counseling to keep them clean and sober and provide them with jobs. Charge them a small amount of rent, once they start working so the money can be put back into the program and finally build and move them into low-income housing complexes, with a roommate or roommates to make it affordable.
The community needs to get involved and donate clothing and money to help the organizations set up to help but lacks the funds to o more. Talk with local business owners getting them involved in the fight against homelessness, by providing jobs to some of the homeless that are able to work and get some restaurants to provide left over food to the shelters. Bring the community with me to talk to city officials and community leaders, get petitions signed on behalf of the homeless population.
One of the best ways to help the homeless is to give them the respect you would expect from anyone. Just because a person is homeless do not mean they are not an individual and do not deserve respect, respecting them will vive them a sense of dignity that they may rarely experience. Building low-income housing complexes would be affected by the zoning laws for residential and business property. “Both residential and business zoning contribute to creating homelessness.
Residential zoning affects the poor especially; commercial zoning regulation seems to affect substance abusers most heavily”. Rogers, J. (1990). There is a lack of affordable housing throughout the country due to the zoning laws which limits affordable housing to a certain district or part of the city. Additionally, there are many imposed restrictions on the development of apartment construction, and the prevention of allowing two or more poor families to share an apartment or the price of buying a home, which greatly increases the cost of rent or buying a house.
To address the potential obstacles to the implementation of my solution, I would talk to the president of the housing commission in my city and explain to him/her the problem with the laws that do not allow anyone living in low-income housing units to have anyone living with them. I would get the community to sign petitions for improved housing conditions and rewrite the zoning laws to allow ore subsidized apartments and houses to be built, and come up with a plan to help the poor to buy the house or apartment they are renting and let more than one family live in a dwelling.
Implemental plan, giving tenants a tax credit for the apartment/house they rent to help with the cost of utilities and giving them the option to put so much of the rent paid, towards the purchase of the dwelling. In order to achieve my suggested changes, new programs would need to be created, such as a program that allows a rent reduction if you move into a two or more family dwelling. Federal loans for he purchase of a subsidized house, providing loans for people of low income for the purchase of a home with small or no interest payments, in order to insure that the loan be repaid.
We need street walkers in the homeless community, people that walk the streets to find and help homeless people find and use all the available services available to them. We need programs that will help the homeless individually, not as a group, with basic necessities such as hot showers, food, clothing and shelter.
