Homelessness and Poverty (excised from FCC thread)

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An update:

Over the past decade, federal, state, and local governments have significantly increased funding to combat homelessness. For example:

- The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reported that federal funding for homelessness programs rose from $4.7 billion in 2013 to over $7.6 billion by 2023.

- Cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco have allocated hundreds of millions annually, with LA’s Proposition HHH (2016) raising $1.2 billion for housing and services, and San Francisco spending roughly $400 million per year on homelessness programs.

Despite this, homelessness has grown:

- HUD’s 2024 Annual Homeless Assessment Report estimated 653,000 people experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2023, a 12% increase from 2022 and the highest recorded since 2007.

- In California, which accounts for nearly half of the U.S.’s unsheltered homeless population, numbers rose by 6% from 2020 to 2023 despite massive investments.

- Cities like Seattle and Portland have seen encampments proliferate, with visible homelessness becoming more entrenched.

While spending and services can be helpful, they are inadequate to solve the homelessness problem on their own. As has been proven by now.

The two biggest obstacles to solving the homelessness problem:

(1) The homeless do not have sufficient desire to change their situation

(2) They have sufficient desire to change their situation, for a time, but they don’t know how to go from (a) the desire for positive change to (b) creating and holding a positive vision to (c) actualizing the positive vision.

As a result, the desire for change becomes frustrated and they fall back into (1).

*Note, this isn’t about fault or “blaming the victim”. This is about solving the problem from an objective, detached position.

Another major factor playing into obstacle (1) -> desire becomes corrupted
-This (corrupted desire) often happens through illness, substance abuse, and/or anti sociality.

It’s necessary for advocates to stand firm in the belief that corrupt desire can be overcome, no matter how far off course the individual seems to be.

Building trust is essential. Part of trust is the (eventual) willingness to tell the truth of the situation.

For instance, some need to be told that, while they were correct to rebel against their socialized self which failed them, their rebellion went too far, and they’ve destroyed too much of their basic moral foundation as a result of destroying their socialization.