THINK TANK


An Occasional Series


6 Steps to Reduce Homeless Epidemic


New policies needed to focus on mental health services, addiction treatment, job training.


by lisa schiffren


THE ISSUE: WHY IS HOMELESSNESS WORSE NOW THAN AT ANY TIME IN THE PAST 40 YEARS?


A


fter all, there are hun- dreds of organizations working on the problem around the country. And


federal, state, and city budgets show big outlays to solve the problem. This past December, the Depart-


ment of Housing and Urban Devel- opment estimated that there were 582,462 homeless people in America on any given night. Of those, 60% were in shelters


and 40% were living on the street. That is the population of a small city.


It’s important to know that approximately 75% of people on the streets suff er from mental illness that is so serious that they lost their previous housing, job, family, etc. Even more, 78%, are addicted to


drugs or alcohol. On either coast, the drug of choice


in homeless encampments is fentan- yl; in the interior it remains meth- amphetamines, for now.


HOW DID WE GET HERE? It didn’t happen by accident. We got here by bad policy. Robert Marbut is the former offi -


42 NEWSMAX | MAY 2023


cial in charge of homelessness for both the Trump and early Biden administrations at the U.S. Inter- agency Council on Homelessness, and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, which is heavily invested in homelessness policy. Marbut notes that homeless-


ness was dropping during the Bush administration. The year 2013 saw a reversal when things started getting worse. That happened after then-Presi-


dent Barack Obama adopted a policy called “Housing First.” The policy, true to its name, man-


dates that getting a home for each homeless man, woman, or family, is the only thing that matters. No longer would states or locali-


ties need to provide or require the services — mental health treatment, drug addiction counseling, job readi- ness — that most homeless people need in order to function. On the strength of Housing First,


Obama predicted that the national homelessness epidemic would be entirely solved by 2023.


WHAT WENT WRONG? As Marbut explains: “They thought that if you got people housing they would stabilize and maybe come in


for treatment, and start function- ing.”


What actually happened was that,


without treatment for mental illness, people passed through housing and ended up back on the streets. It certainly wasn’t due to lack


of spending. The Hoover Institute reports that,


“since 2016, the number of homeless in San Francisco has increased from 12,249 to 19,086, which comes out to about $57,000 in spending per homeless person per year. New esti- mates suggest that number has risen to as much as $100,000 per person this year.


WHAT IS NEEDED? T


he needs of families, most of which end up in shel- ters, not on the streets, are diff erent from individuals.


Families often become homeless


because of divorce, domestic vio- lence, or a single mother’s inability to aff ord high rents. So, housing itself along with job training often solves the problem. Consider that everywhere else that


the federal government gives people benefi ts, it imposes conditions. If you get unemployment, you have


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100