What Can Be Done?

Picture
It is one of the world’s most obvious and yet hard to solve problems.  A large problem with homelessness is that the people need to want or be able to help themselves and if you are homeless then you are obviously not one of those two things.  The other large cause of homelessness is highly addictive drugs.  Highly addictive drugs often lead the homelessness because it is a very expensive addiction.  You eventually don’t even have enough money for your family but the drugs are so addictive that you would rather spend your small amount of money or your savings on the drugs.  Then you get to the point where you are addicted but you no longer have an income.  This often leads to robberies then jail.  It is a vicious cycle that people usually cannot solve themselves.  In the United States of America, Epstein (1996) argues that long-term solutions to homelessness, that might include building affordable housing, addressing unemployment, raising the minimum wage, etc., are not only costly economically but they are also politically difficult for they would have negative ramifications for those who currently benefit from the market. He further argues that housing costs would need to be readjusted across the board if a long-term policy of affordable housing for homeless people was implemented. Certainly, taxation would need to be increased in order to pay for such programmes.