the U.S. Is struggling to solve its homelessness crisi
The number of americans living on the streets and in
shelters is growing. This is home housing is so
expensive and you can't afford it. I will be killing
myself to pay rent. Those rent prices are only
increasing and that means even more Americans will have
a difficult time affording housing and in record high
inflation. And that leaves America's homeless
vulnerable. In 2020, nearly 600,000 Americans were left
without a home. According to the National Alliance to
end homelessness. Data from the nonprofit organization
shows overall homelessness has improved by 10% since
2007, but in 2020 the us saw a 30% increase in
unsheltered homelessness and in recent months,
homelessness is reaching crisis levels. In major cities
across the country. This year, Knoxville saw a 50%
increase in its homeless population. Long beach
California a 62% increase since 2020 Phoenix a 33%
spike homelessness can come in many forms and can
impact all ages. In January 2020, 2070% of the homeless
were individuals, 30% belong to families with Children.
I wasn't able to finish school. That was one of my
biggest worries because I didn' know where I was gonna
sleep after school. So I would rather just stay where I
was at the whole day to guarantee a spot. States and
cities have set aside more funding to try to curb the
issue. New York has more than doubled its spending to
over three billion. Since 2014. It's official
Colorado's governor approved 45 million to convert a
youth corrections facility into a homeless recovery
campus and in New Mexico, $10 million dollars is going
to communities to buy old motels and hotels and
transform them into transitional housing. These are
just a string of new methods in an attempt to tackle a
problem that goes back decades. According to Bloomberg
homelessness first peaked after the Civil War when
veterans without jobs struggled to find housing, freed
slaves struggled to find affordable homes or jobs from
then on, affordable homes were demolished in many
minority neighborhoods as part of urban renewal. In the
19 seventies, investment in public housing started to
decline when President Richard Nixon imposed a
moratorium on new public housing after he declared them
a failure and instead pivoted to housing subsidies an
in the eighties welfare programs to support those in
need were cut under President Ronald Reagan's econo
plans to lower taxes for businesses, Bloomberg ads.
AIDS crisis that hit the L.B.G.T.Q. Community, a dru
epidemic, and mass incarceration of people specifi
black and Hispanic also fueled the problem. This was
further intensified by policies that favor single
family housing zones. According to the new york times,
most land plots are designed for a single family house.
Many state laws and zoning rules limit the land that
can be used to build multi unit buildings like
apartment buildings that can house multiple families,
really is a blend of the trifecta of affordable hous
mental illness and substance abuse. When you add those
three together at various levels for each person, this
is, this is what we're facing. Other states like
California and Oregon have taken other approaches and
passed laws in recent years to end single family zoning.
So more affordable housing can be built. Some cities
like Missoula Montana have moved towards sanctioned
camps known as temporary safe outdoor spaces, 49% of
the people that have come through here are now
permanently in either housing recovery or in areas to
where we've mended some family situations, but they
have not returned back to the system. In the last year,
a number of state legislatures introduced bills t
some say criminalize homelessness in Tennessee. It's
now a felony for homeless people to camp in parks or
other public property. Some argue this is not the
solution, I believe it's only a small misdemeanor, but
with a small misdemeanor and a failure to appear. Now
you have warrants. Now you can be jailed in any time.
Now it's difficult to go walk into a state building or
a federal funded building because you're worried that
instead of getting help resources, you're gonna simply
further in debt yourself to the lack of it. All, others
like Judge block with the cicero Institute believe
camping bands are the right path to helping the
homeless long term the areas you've seen where it's
actually enforced, such as austin texas, you haven't
seen a single arrest since the law has been effect but
you've seen hundreds of more people end up in shelters
and services and that's exactly what we advocate having
the penalty there. But most importantly requiring
office, There's other people to offer alternatives to
make sure those people take them up and move into
shelter and elsewhere and record high inflation is
adding another hurdle for Americans struggling to keep
up with rising rent prices. For some those rent price
increases are simply unaffordab We do see people
falling into homelessness because they can't afford
rent and it's not like it's being raised like 30-60
days. Some areas are raising it $200 according to
government data reviewed by the L.A. times, new rent
leases have increased by more than 11% year over year.
And polling from Freddie Mac found the majority of
renters saw a rent price hike in the last year, one in
five say they're extremely likely to miss a payment.
The severity of America's homeless problem rang
depending on on the city and state. The cities across
the country are taking action to address the problem.
The U.S. Interagency Council on homelessness says the
solution is to tackle the housing issue, integrate
healthcare, strengthen crisis response systems and
build career pathways, but this can't be done without
building and fostering partners to address the root
cause of homelessness tammy Swick, Newsy