HomelessnessThe Race to End Homelessness

A Future Without Hovercars, or Homelessness

By January 18, 2013 No Comments

Ten years seems like a long time. If we go by the promises made in Back to the Future II , we should all be using hover boards in about two years. In a movie about time travel, the future is open to endless possibilities. Maybe it was this feeling of confidence in the future that motivated teams in 243 jurisdictions to create Ten Year Plans to End Homelessness. With a buffer of a decade, a lot seems feasible.

Baltimore adopted its Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness in 2008, promising homelessness would be “rare and brief” a decade later. As we approach the halfway mark on the plan, some data suggests homelessness is actually increasing. Something is obviously not working, but what? And how can it be fixed?

The campaign to have cities adopt these plans originated with the National Alliance to End Homelessness in 2000. They provide support and tips for creating a Ten Year Plan, and even offer some simple ground rules. They’ve gotten over 200 cities, towns or whole states to adopt these plans, with mixed results.

Philadelphia pledged to end homelessness by the year 2010. They developed a comprehensive plan to make this goal a reality, yet there are still people experiencing homelessness there. New York and Los Angeles both have plans in place to end homelessness by the year 2016 and have seen some positive results, but these cities still boast the largest groups of people experiencing homelessness in the country.

When a city writes a ten year plan, they generally look at national models and perhaps what other cities are planning. After the plan is on paper, the communication seems to slow. Instead of just looking 10 years off into the distant future, perhaps we can learn from looking around us to see what other cities are doing to make changes.

Chicago has seen a 12 percent decrease in its homeless population by using a housing-first model, and Denver has reduced chronic homelessness by 36 percent by coupling housing with mental healthcare. What works in one city might not work everywhere: not every city has as many abandoned row homes as Baltimore, as many homeless people as New York City, or as large a percentage of its population experiencing homelessness as New Orleans. Still, a sharing of ideas might spark the right formula for programs and policies that can work in at least one other area. Each city fighting on its own for the end of homelessness is one thing that is definitely not  working. Better communication is necessary to really change homelessness.

Will we achieve hover boards before we end homelessness in any city in the United States? A lot could change in 10 years if we can sustain the support and focus needed to make systematic changes to the way a city approaches homelessness – but only if we share ideas about what works.

Up Next: Housing Economic Policy

Photo credit:  The Kobal Collection

Author Jasmine Arnold

Jasmine Arnold works at the Weinberg Housing and Resource Center, a shelter for Baltimorians experiencing homelessness. She is a Rhode Islander relocated to Baltimore by way of Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she studied Sociology and Economics. Moving between states sparked an interest in comparing not only the local charms of each new place, but in understanding how cities tackle difficult social issues.

More posts by Jasmine Arnold

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