Introduction
Homelessness is characterized by people who lack or have limited access to reasonably priced, secure and safe housing. One common characteristic of the homeless people is the financial struggle that they are faced with. The people do not live a personal and private life due to the lack of privacy. According to the Australian Government, Housing department, “Homelessness also means a lack of connectedness with community. Often, people who are homeless do not have the opportunity to join in community life and activities and they can experience profound isolation and disengagement” (4).
The homeless live in various areas depending on their financial ability. There are those who live in the streets, in parks, on the abandoned building, railway carriages and cars. Others reside temporarily with their relatives and move occasionally from one relative to another. They live in refugee camps temporarily as they find another place for shelter. An advanced group of the homeless is that with people living in houses but do not have access to privacy of the basic facilities such as the sanitary houses and the living space. People in slums and shanties are good examples we can considered to be homeless under the advanced category. The poor conditions under which the homeless people live have called for the need to eliminate the problem. Most governments are running programs or have plans of dealing with the issue.
Proposal
There is a need to address the issue of homelessness in all nations of the world. Burt states that, “A concerted national strategy is needed to prevent homelessness and to end quickly discrete episodes of homelessness if they become inevitable” (1). Any proposal to address the issue must entail creation of new houses so as to accommodate the homeless. It must also look into community building project so as to economically empower the people since homelessness is attributed to financial challenges. Creation of new housing units will address those people who are already homeless while empowering the community will prevent new emergency of homelessness. The rift between the poor and the rich is what hikes the prices for houses making them out of reach for the poor. If factors that lead to poverty issue are carefully addressed by governments, homelessness will no longer be a big issue it is.
According to Burt, “Homelessness prevention is an essential element of any effort to end homelessness either locally or nationwide. To close the front door of entry into homelessness, the central challenge of prevention is targeting our efforts toward those people that will become homeless without the intervention,” (1). Since providing have housing units to individuals is practically challenging and has been a failed project for most governments, a proposal to empower people financial is the best proposal to end homelessness. Empowering will not be limited to the government only but philanthropists will also have a chance to help out.
Plan of Action
Financial empowerment of homeless people will include majorly providing employment in various ways. Employment will range from offering those with academic qualifications in the government to providing financial assistance that will initiate self employment. Self employment is a major boost for the homeless as individuals will create employment to others who would have waited for the government to provide the jobs.
The first step towards providing financial assistance to the people will is to identify the communities that face the challenge. Burt explains the second step: “To conduct an exploratory study to identify communities that have implemented effective and well-targeted community-wide homelessness prevention activities. The study documents these approaches in six communities with the hope that other communities might learn how to carry out similar efforts,” (2). This will help other communities to know how do go about implementation and support for empowerment projects. It will ensure that people come up with great business ideas that will generate income. Creating awareness to the affected communities will be an important step as it will ensure and minimize cases of mismanagement of the funds provided. This will supply the homeless communities with ideas and opportunities to explore once the fund is availed.
Burt notes that in the United States of America, “Largely because of federal leadership and funding—through the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 and its annual modifications—the homeless service system in the United States grew tremendously in the 1990s. Available beds more than doubled, from about 275,000 in 1988 to about 607,000 in 1996. Emergency shelter capacity increased about 20 percent during that period (4). When the awareness has been created and communities identified it would be the right time to really provide finance to the homeless communities. The finance should be provided on accountability grounds to ensure that the funding is only used to empower people financially. As mentioned all other people and philanthropists willing to donate will be invited to fund the program.
Desired Outcome
The funding is expected to positively help the homeless attain self sufficiency that will enable them to buy homes by themselves. The homeless are also anticipated to benefit from the empowerment program by being able to afford the basic needs for themselves as well as their families. Lightfoot explains that, “Successful programs also ensure that kids — who represent 20 to 40 percent of homeless youngsters, but just 4 to 10 percent of youth in general — feel welcome” (1). The people will start their own businesses and this will create employment to others extending the program further.
Resources needed
The financial empowerment project will require resources that enable the homeless start businesses and other income generating projects. The government and philanthropist will have to provide the funding for the people to start their personal projects. Lightfoot notes that, “These funders support the development of homeless service systems that combine public, private and nonprofit resources efficiently and effectively” (1). All resources required are basically financial as the homeless struggle with poverty.
Conclusion
The common characteristic of the homeless people is the financial struggle that they are faced with. The homeless live in various areas depending on their financial ability; there are those who live in streets, others in refugee camps while others live in underdeveloped settlements like slums. There is a need to address the issue of homelessness in all nations of the world and proposal to empower people financially is the best proposal to end homelessness. Financial empowerment of homeless people will include majorly providing employment in various ways. This would be provided by the government as well as philanthropists. The funding is expected to positively help the homeless attain self sufficiency that will enable them to buy homes by themselves and sustain life. The financial empowerment project will require resources that enable the homeless start businesses and other income generating projects. The program will act as a financial instrument geared towards eliminating homelessness.
Works Cited
Burt, Martha R. "What will it take to end homelessness?" The Urban Institute | Research of Record. The Urban Institute, Sept. 2011. Web. 14 May 2013.
Lightfoot, Judy. "5 ways to end youth homelessness | Crosscut.com." Seattle News Online | Pacific Northwest News Online | Crosscut.com. N.p., 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 14 May 2013.
"The Road Home: A national approach to reducing homelessness." Australian Government Department Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. N.p., 2013. Web. 14 May 2013.
