English 9A
Sample Position Paper: Helping the Homeless
5A
Helping the Homeless
(1)
On a chilly February afternoon, an old man sits sleeping on the sidewalk outside a New
York hotel while the lunchtime crowd shuffles by. At the man’s foot is a sign which reads:
“Won’t you help me? I’m cold and homeless and lonely. God Bless You” (Chambers 11).
Imagine, if you can, the life this man leads. He probably spends his days alone on the street
begging for handouts, and his nights searching for shelter from the cold. He has no job, no
friends, and nowhere to turn. Although most Americans would like to believe that cases like this
are rare, the National Coalition for the Homeless estimates that as many as 3 million citizens of
our country share this man’s lifestyle (Tucker 34). Who are these people we call “the homeless,”
and what are the reasons for their predicament?
(2)
According to Pastor Walker, the director of the Gospel Missions Shelter in Sioux City,
Iowa, most of the homeless are unemployed males, and from 40 to 60 percent have alcohol or
drug-related problems. Walker also points out, however, that the image of the “typical”
homeless person is changing. He says, for instance, that the average age of the homeless has
dropped from fifty-five to thirty in the last ten years (Walker interview). National studies also
show that America’s homeless population is changing. A recent study by the U.S. Conference of
Mayors, for example, found that one third of the homeless population consists of families with
small children, and 22 percent of the homeless have full- or part-time jobs (Matthews 57).
Statistics seem to show that more and more of the homeless are entire families who have simply
become the victims of economic hardship.
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(3)
Why are these people still on the streets, despite the billions of dollars that are spent on
the homeless each year? Some blame the national housing shortage, pointing out that there are
not enough homes to fill the country’s need for shelter (Marcuse 426). Further study of the
problem, however, suggests that government programs, which fall into several categories, are to
blame. Some are handout programs designed to provide food or clothing to all of the needy, not
just the homeless. An example of this type of program is the Temporary Emergency Food
Assistance Program, created by the federal government in 1991 to make surplus agricultural
products available to those in need. Other programs, such as the experimental voucher program
and the rent-control system, are intended to provide housing for low-income families that need
shelter. Despte the good intentions behind these programs, however, none of them have
provided sufficient help for the homeless.
(4)
Why have these programs been ineffective in cutting down on homelessness? In some
cases, the answer is that the programs are not designed to fit the special needs of the homeless. It
was estimated in October of 1996, for instance, that 99 percent of the food supplied by the
Temporary Emergency Assistance Program had gone to those who were not homeless. The
reason? As Anna Kondratas of the Department of Agriculture says, “When you’re homeless,
you don’t carry around a five-pound block of cheese”(qtd. in Whitman 34). Food programs like
these are valuable only to those who already have a place to store and prepare the food they are
given. The homeless, therefore, are unable to take full advantage of these programs.
(5)
Not all programs set up to make housing available to those with low incomes have been
effective, either. An example is the voucher system, a federal program created in 2003, which
allows low-income families to live wherever they can find housing, regardless of cost. The only
requirement is that families must pay at least 30 percent of their incomes in rent. Although this
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system has been successful in finding shelter for some needy families, it is not a long term
solution to homelessness. One problem is that most families who use the voucher system pay a
lower percent of their income for rent than those who rent apartments on their own. Therefore, a
family could “raise” its income simply by becoming “homeless”(Coulson 16). The second
problem with the program is that it needs a much greater housing supply to be effective. Says
Democratic Congressman Thomas Downey of Long Island, “The voucher system would make
sense if there were housing, but there is just not enough. It doesn’t in any way address the
problem” (qtd. in Hull 23).
(6)
The program that has had the worst results, however, is the rent-control system, which
now covers approximately 12 percent of America’s housing. Rent control is a program set up by
local governments to limit the amount of rent that a landlord can charge his tenants. It dates back
to World War II, when New York tenants became worried about rent increases following the
war. In 1947, these tenants persuaded politicians to extend the rent limits to permanent
houseing. Since that time, nine states and many major cities, such as Los Angeles and
Washington, D.C., have adopted rent-control policies (Fleetwood 19).
(7)
At first glance, it would appear that rent control should benefit the homeless, making sure
that low-rent housing is available. The problem is that most of this housing is rented by those in
the middle and upper class. Most of these tenants like living in these cheaper apartments and do
not plan to move. This results in a condition known as “housing gridlock,” in which no one
moves out of the low-rent housing. Seymour Durst, a developer-philosopher from Manhattan,
describes the situation this way: “We’ve got plenty of low-income housing in New York.
We’ve just got upper-income people living in it” (qtd. in Tucker 43).
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(8)
This situation has had a drastic effect on the poor of New York City. Unless they can
find a rent-controlled apartment, they are forced into housing at middle-to-upper-income prices.
Some estimate that this means these people are paying 20 to 100 percent more for housing than
they would have without the rent-control program. (“Then There’s Rent”) Those who can’t
afford these higher rent payments are often left without a place to live. Such abuses of the rentcontrol program are contributing to the problem of homelessness rather than fixing it.
(9)
Throughout the nation, rent control has had effects similar to those in New York.
According to William Tucker, a writer who has done a great deal of research on the subject, rent
control adds to the number of homeless a city will have, regardless of location. For example,
homelessness in Santa Monica, California, is so common that the city is called “The Homeless
Capital of the West Coast.” The only thing that makes this city different from others in the same
area is its extremely strict rent-control policy. Other cities in Tucker’s study that have rentcontrol programs also have a much higher rate of homelessness than the national average. In
fact, Tucker reports that where rent control is practiced, homelessness is 250 percent greater than
in cities without rent control (41).
(10)
Since these government programs have not solved the problem of homelessness, what
should be done instead? There is no single answer to this question, but the most promising
solution consists of three steps. First of all, the federal government must accept responsibility
for providing shelter for the homeless. During the Bush administration, the federal government
attempted to shift this burden to state and local governments by slashing federal funds for
housing. Between the years of 2001 and 2007, Bush cut the housing budget from $30 billion to
$7.3 billion, expecting local governments and private contributions to make up the difference
(Matthews 58). Unfortunately, Bush’s plan has not worked as well as he expected. In New York
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City, for instance, only $500 million has been spent on the homeless since the cutbacks, while
the need has been estimated at $12.5 billion (Chambers 11).
(11)
The decrease in funds is only half the problem; there has also been a major drop in
housing production. Only 60,000 new housing units have been created in New York during the
past three years, compared to 265,000 between the years 2000 and 2003. Many other cities have
experienced similar cutbacks. In addition, some of the federal housing units built in the 1990’s
will soon be free from the rent restrictions placed on them at that time. The result will probably
be a substantial raise in rent, which will put much of the current low income housing out of the
reach of the poor (Matthews 57-58). In order to avoid the drastic effects that these low rent
housing shortages could cause, more housing must be created immediately. According to
community groups, renewed federal support will be necessary to accomplish this task (Hull 22).
(12)
A second step necessary for helping the homeless is making sure that the proper type of
housing is available. According to Peter Marcuse, a professor of urban planning at Columbia
University, shelter for the homeless falls into three categoires. The first and simplest type is the
soup kitchen, a temporary emergency shelter that provides food and, sometimes, a place to sleep.
Shelters of this type are especially emportant in places where little food is available or weather
conditions are unfavorable. The second type of housing is the transitional shelter, which also
provides housing only temporarily. Transitional housing is unique, however, in that it provides
job counseling and other social services, which are intended to help the homeless rejoin society.
The third type of shelter is permanent housing, the type of shelter most likely to bring about an
end to homelessness (426). Permanent shelter could be provided by constructing low cost,
prefabricated housing modules, or by renovating buildings that no one presently lives in
(Coulson 16). Unfortunately, most current housing programs rely on temporary soup kitchens,
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as they are the least expensive to build and maintain. Although soup kitchens have an important
role to play, more transitional and permanent housing will be necessary for the homeless to fully
readjust to society.
(13)
The final step to ending homeless is forming an organization that will check to see that
shelter residents are satisfied with their facilities and surroundings. This function should be
coupled with psychiatric care for those who are not yet ready to rejoin society. Studies have
shown that neglecting the personal care of the homeless often makes all other efforts to help
them useless. These people often return to living on the streets unless they are offered some type
of support group (Whitman 27). This check-up work could be done either by a government
agency or by one of the existing social groups. This third step must be included in any plan
intended to end homelessness.
(14)
When we talk about “ending” homelessness, however, we must remember that it is a
problem that will never be truly eliminated. There will always be those who refuse any help
offered to them, the ones who prize their “free” lifestyle above personal comfort. While we must
respect the rights of such people, we cannot use them as an excuse to do nothing about the
homeless. Most people living on the streets are there, not by choice, but because they have no
alternative. It is these people that we must try to help immediately, with the support of the
federal government. If we begin now, we may be able to make homelessness simply a matter of
choice.
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Works Cited
Chambers, Rick. “No Place to Lay Their Heads.” The Church Herald 16 Sept. 2008: 9-11.
Coulson, C. “The $137,000 Slum.” The New Republic 19 Jan. 2008: 15-16.
Fleetwood, Blake. “There’s Nothing Liberal about Rent Control.” The Washington Monthly
June 2006: 19-23.
Hull, Jennifer. “Building from the Bottom Up.” Time 9 Feb. 2007: 22-23.
Marcuse, Peter. “Why Are They Homeless?” The Nation 4 Apr. 2007: 426-29.
Matthews, Tom. “What Can Be Done?” Newsweek 21 Mar. 2008: 57-58.
“Then There’s Rent Control.” The New Republic 11 Apr. 2008: 22.
Tucker, William. “Where Do the Homeless Come From?” National Review 26 Sept. 2007: 3243.
Walker, Harry. Personal Interview. 20 Dec. 2008.
Whitman, David. “Hope for the Homeless.” U.S. News and World Report 29 Feb. 2008: 26-36.
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