Housing & Community

There's a great program on the latest NPR's Justice Talking about homelessness that really touched a nerve for me. Here are some thoughts I have swirling in my head.

COMMUNITY

Housing in America is seen as a competitive means of "success." Americans (attempt to) experience the movement from living w/ family to rented studio to apartment, to condo, and finally to owning a home. Many never make it, of course, and hardly anybody seems to think that housing is a human "right" (with the exception of Jimmy Carter and Habitat for Humanity, which is a great thing).

It interests me that in many parts of the ancient world, the community ensured that everyone had a home to live in. When a young adult was ready to be on his/her own (often coinciding with marriage), the community got together to build a home. We continue to see this in modern times in the Amish communities in the U.S. and primitive tribes in Africa and elsewhere.

I wonder what life would be like if Americans believed that everyone ought to have a home.

ROOTS

It interests me that a lot of people who dislike homeless people often assume that the homeless person isn't originally from wherever they are homeless. I remember a recent NPR story in which the mayor of a major city expressed his frustration when he tries to help homeless people, saying that they refuse his help.

How does he help them? He offers them a free bus ticket "home" -- meaning anywhere else but his city. How ironic! But the homeless person had lived in that city all his life. He was in the only "home" he knows. But to the mayor, the homeless simply refuse to be helped and don't belong in his city. ARGH!

HOUSING FIRST

One of the encouraging spots of the NPR program is "Housing First". This program realizes that people do better in life (they stay off drugs, keep jobs, stay healthier, are mentally fitter, and stay out of jail more) if they FIRST have a house. Most transition programs START by trying to give a person a job, life skills or drug treatment, with the goal of eventually, some day, getting a house. But it doesn't work well because a house is such a fundamental need, that it is very challenging for the homeless to keep a job or stay off drugs if they don't already have a home.

This is why Housing First seems like such a good idea to me. They start by giving a family a permanent place to live. What's even better is that there are few strings attached. There aren't strings like "you have to get a job within 6 months" or "you have to stay off drugs" in order to obtain or keep the housing. These punishments don't serve their purpose.

The result? 90% of the recipients are thriving. Even better? They discovered that it is cheaper to do it this way. It costs less because the recipients need less public health care, spend little time in jail (a huge cost savings), and require less substance abuse treatment or mental health treatment.

HISTORY LESSON

Archaeologists in Palestine have discovered that at around 1,000 B.C. all the homes were about the same size. In other words, housing was equitable. It was not until around 800 B.C. that one starts to find large and small houses, geographically segregated, so that the large, expensive houses made of stone are on one side of town, and the puny smaller houses made of clay are on the other size of town. What lessons does that have for us, and for community?

Finally, I am lucky and graced to be able to afford to own a nice home, and I appreciate it very much. Yet I know that anything could happen. I'd like to *think* that I am detached enough from my home that, if necessary, I could leave it all behind and go back to living in an apartment (sssh, don't tell Dean!). I just hope I don't have to find out for sure.

P.S. This was a depressing thing to hear on the program: "there is no region in the country where a full-time job at the federal minimum wage provides enough income to rent a 1-bedroom apartment...." Congress voted for another raise for themselves last month. Why is it so hard to index the federal minimum wage to the cost of housing? Better -- let's index Congress's salary to the federal minimum wage!

P.P.S. This program reminded me of a small group in Denver who worked REALLY hard to raise money to convert a large downtown home into a shelter. After spending most of it in renovations, the neighborhood successfully blocked the opening of the shelter because they didn't want homeless people near them. The money was lost. It was really very, very sad.