The Wrongologist

What’s
Wrong Today:

The Great
Recession has caused continued hardship for many Americans. Yet a recent HUD report
found that homelessness is down. The report by HUD to Congress says homelessness
decreased by nearly 4% over the past year, and by 13% since 2007. The report
also states:

But the
survey doesn’t actually measure homelessness.

Instead,
it looks at people who are in shelters or transitional housing and the number
of people who are outside on a single January night. Not included are those
doubled up or couch surfing because they can’t afford their own place. Neither
are people in hospitals, mental health or substance abuse centers, jails or
prisons with nowhere to go upon release.

The
problem isn’t just the narrow scope of the count; its methods are flawed. For
the count of people in shelters and transitional housing, service providers
report their numbers on the designated night. But they are just measuring
capacity. If the number goes down, this could mean either fewer homeless or
fewer beds for them.

The
“street” part of the count tries to count people in places “not meant for human
habitation,” such as streets, parks, alleys, subway tunnels, all-night movie
theaters, abandoned buildings, roofs, stairwells, caves, campgrounds and
vehicles.

Although HUD
sets the guidelines, communities have discretion in how they count. A few use
sophisticated statistical methods, but most simply organize volunteers to fan
out and make judgments about who is homeless, sometimes avoiding locations
where they feel unsafe. How even the best prepared volunteers can cover large parts
of town thoroughly in a few hours is anyone’s guess.

Local
policies can also affect the count. For example, cities are increasingly making
it a crime to sleep in public places. If the street count goes down, is it
because need is down or because there is greater cause to fear arrest, driving
people into hiding?

Similarly,
in some cities, families seeking shelter can be threatened with removal of
their children, so families living outside have extra incentive to avoid
detection.

Homelessness
persists. It is not a single night event.

Utah has come
up with an innovative way to solve homelessness. They give away homes. What
worse way could there be to combat homelessness in America than to provide the
homeless with a place to live?

From the Daily
Kos:

 And
who is to blame for trying this experiment? That famous Chinese food lover and compassionate
conservative, former Republican Governor John Huntsman.

According
to Nationswell,
Utah has reduced its rate of chronic homelessness by 74% over the past eight
years, moving 2000 people off the street and putting the state on track to
eradicate homelessness altogether by 2015. It’s such a ridiculous proposition
that only Utah, that bastion of conservative values, could suggest and then
implement it.

Now, with
its growing success, the policy has a chance of spreading to other conservative
locales, like Wyoming.

According
to RealtyTrac,
in 2013, 14.2 million homes were vacant all year for some reason:

The
HUD report says there are 610,000 homeless in America, and we have 14.2 million
vacant homes. Utah shows us that the homelessness problem can be partially
solved with vacant housing stock. What would be wrong with giving it a try?

Earlier
this week, we wrote about Slumlord
Billionaires, Wall Street-backed investment companies that are buying up
vacant houses and renting them out.

Even
Wall Street can’t buy them all, or lease all of them back to their previous
owners. Ending homelessness requires closing the gap between the need for
housing and its availability. It requires enacting policies as Utah has done.

“For I was
hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a
stranger and you welcomed me,”


Who said that?