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I created this page because Washington DC has quite a few homeless people, and after running into them daily for a while I started to think, "What could be done to fix this?"

Sources of Information

Wikipedia Articles

  • Homelessness
    • Major reasons and causes for homelessness as documented by many reports and studies include:
      • Unavailability of employment opportunities.
      • Poverty, caused by many factors including unemployment and underemployment.
      • Lack of accessible healthcare. People who have some kind of chronic and weakening disease but cannot get healthcare either because they don't have money to afford it or because the government will not give it to them are simply too weak to go and work every day.
      • Abuse by government or by other people with power.
      • War or armed conflict.
      • Natural Disasters, including but not limited to earthquakes and hurricanes.
      • Mental disorder, where mental health services are unavailable or difficult to access. A United States Federal survey done in 2005 indicated that at least one-third of homeless men and women have serious psychiatric disorders or problems.
      • Disability, especially where disability services are non-existent or poor performing.
      • Social exclusion, including because of sexual orientation and gender identity
      • Substance abuse
      • Lack of affordable housing. By way of example, an article in the November 2007 issue of Atlantic Monthly reported on a study of the cost of obtaining the "right to build" (i.e. a building permit, red tape, bureaucracy, etc.) in different U.S. cities. The "right to build" cost does not include the cost of the land or the cost of constructing the house. The study was conducted by Harvard economists Edward Glaeser and Kristina Tobio. According to the chart accompanying the article, the cost of obtaining the "right to build" adds approximately $600,000 to the cost of each new house that is built in San Francisco.
      • Domestic violence.
      • Relationship breakdown, particularly in relation to young people and their parents.
      • Prison release and re-entry into society.
      • Forced eviction – In many countries, people lose their homes by government order to make way for newer upscale high rise buildings, roadways, and other governmental needs. The compensation may be minimal, in which case the former occupants cannot find appropriate new housing and become homeless.
      • Mortgage foreclosures where mortgage holders see the best solution to a loan default is to take and sell the house to pay off the debt. The popular press made an issue of this in 2008.
      • Foreclosures on landlords often lead to eviction of their tenants. "The Sarasota, Florida, Herald Tribune noted that, by some estimates, more than 311,000 tenants nationwide have been evicted from homes this year after lenders took over the properties."
  • Homelessness in the United States
  • Mayoralty of Rudy Giuliani - Relations with the homeless

People

  • DC Central Kitchen employs ex-cons to help them get back on their feet
  • Bill Strickland from Pittsburg did something similar

Quora

  • http://www.quora.com/search?q=homelessness
  • http://www.quora.com/Homelessness/I-liv ... o-for-them

    • In New York City, most of homeless that ask for food aren't exactly in need of food; in fact "the system" provides over $200 per month to anyone that is homeless and without income in New York City. Also, they receive over $250 in cash assistance and great health care (Medicaid). Anyone that's homeless and lives in a shelter in NYC is required to take advantage of these entitlement programs.

      Homeless people can get free clothes (some are really nice) and there are various places that will provide them a meal and a shower no matter what (Bowery Mission comes to mind).

      Unfortunately, a large amount of the homeless population has substance problems which is why they panhandle or they look to make some tax-free money while they keep their benefits.

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  • Results for "homeless interview" on YouTube
  • A Unique Approach to Rehab in Indonesia
  • Life in the Deportee Slums of Mexico
    • 7:55 - Cocho
      • "I spent a while in the US, and all of our belongings and savings are still there. I left my family and job over there, a big auto shop. We worked at a body shop. It was our own business. My real wife, who was also there, she came over with my children and now she's in the state of Guererro. God bless her, wherever she may be, little Mayra. I''m here in Tijuana[...] We used to rent a house. It was our home. It was a beautiful thing. All of our family was well behaved. There was a fridge, a washing machine. We even had a guest room. This is really sad. We didn't need anything, we had it all. We ate like regular folk. But this place is truly awful. We've stayed at shelters and hotels, and this place. But it doesn't compare to the home we had in America...with our family over there, enjoying happiness."
      • At one point the woman says that she estimates 90% of the people in the Canal use heroin, and 100% use drugs of some kind.
      • 12:29 - "During Obama's administration there have been more than 1.4 million deportations. The majority of them pass through Tijuana. Throughout the border, Baja California receives the highest number of deportees. An average of two hundred people are deported every day. Of those two hundred, we estimate that 30% are Mexicans that were in prison in the US or that belong to a gang. Another 30% are Mexicans who tried to cross but were arrested and deported. Those people will attempt to cross again, because that's their goal. And the other 30% are Mexicans who have lived for a long time in the US."
      • 14:57 - "The main reason people get deported is for late payment of a traffic ticket or infraction. The other reasons are raids, which are now done in workplaces. Or drunk driving, or being drunk on the street."
  • Permanently Temporary: The Truth About Temp Labor
  • A guy who has made many different kinds of small homes from cheap materials

...

  • Companies Say 3 Million Unfilled Positions in Skill Crisis
    • Technical proficiency isn't always enough. Employers also report a shortage of what they call "soft skills," including the ability to solve problems, think critically and work in teams. Workers who exhibit such traits can be candidates to train for higher-skilled jobs.
  • VICE - The Modern-Day 'Harvest of Shame'
  • 2013.02.14 - Priceonomics - The Street Kids of San Francisco

    • Our initial hypothesis was that life on Haight Street would be a grim, Dickensian hellhole. Instead, we discovered a world of misunderstood, modern-day nomads, blithely toeing the line between poverty, drug dealing, and hippy nirvana. Most of them seemed to be having fun.
      [...]
      Most street kids we spoke to came from one of two backgrounds: either they had job prospects (whether good or dead-end) but preferred the freedom of homelessness, or were transient homeless who fell in love with the street kid community.

      Kenny, who we met in Golden Gate Park, represents the former. Middle-aged, he is a ten-year veteran of the scene. His story of arriving in Haight-Ashbury unfolds like the tale of Siddhartha:

      "My family owns a major medevac company. We were affluent, well off. My wife and I were both pursuing PhDs when she asked for a divorce and it tore my life apart. In the process of re-examining everything I took for granted, I decided to come here."
      [...]
      Kenny’s story is an extreme case, but he is not the only one who left a comfortable existence for the freedom of the Haight. A number had college degrees or left jobs in retail and construction.

      Stephan, the very first street kid we met, represents the second background:

      “My mom kicked me out of the house at 14 and gave me a ticket to my aunt’s place in Florida. As I was waiting for the bus, a van full of Grateful Dead groupies pulled up. ‘We’re here for you,’ they told me. I got in. They became my family.”
      [...]
      Each street kid like Stephan had a different story for how they became transient: Nix hated moving foster home to foster home and decided to run away. Ritch lost his job and apartment in New York due to a heroin addiction and began hitchhiking. Brand discovered the scene after his friends sold his mobile home for drugs and he fled the law across state lines.

      But they all stayed for the same reason: They found a community where “people will give you the shirt off their back,” where everyone is accepted, and where people share and live communally. The word “family” is repeated a lot.

      Especially for those with mental problems or those who felt scorned elsewhere, the accepting attitudes and communal lifestyle offer a place for them to feel at home.
      [...]
      Whenever Haight Street tourists or bar hoppers crowd the neighborhood, street kids panhandle (hold a palm out for money – resembling a pan handle) and spange (“Spare change?”). An average day of spanging brings in about $40. But with some luck and creative tactics (jumping out of trash cans to scare a group of teenagers, or telling tourists how to take the perfect picture of the Haight and Ashbury street signs), a day’s haul can break into triple digits.

      This struck us as a good deal of money for the homeless. The street kids disagreed. “I have a spot downtown where I can make $50 an hour,” one girl told us. “But I try and respect the spot and not go too often.” Others added that spanging elsewhere easily brings in triple digits every day. Yet they still panhandle in the Haight even though it’s not their most profitable location.

      Selling marijuana is also a consistent source of income for many street kids. They sell weed to a diverse customer base, from tourists to local yuppies and other peddlers, so the amount they make per transaction varies. Tourists may pay two or three times more than a local. Street kids consistently describe making several hundred to a thousand dollars a month and profit margins as high as 50%. We even met a shrewd kid named Swirly selling weed to pay his girlfriend’s tuition.

      Aside from drug dealing and panhandling, a few kids occasionally receive money from their families, while others use food stamp cards. But the majority insist on supporting themselves, and even refuse to spange. Many kids make necklaces or other trinkets out of gemstones, but they seem more interested in talking about their properties and trading them with other street kids than selling them profitably to tourists.

      Many of the kids get part time jobs in construction, in landscaping, or at music festivals, but these jobs are just a temporary “break.” Employment and income is a fun change of pace from the Haight, but it’s not as if they’re antsy to escape their homeless situation.
      [...]

      Their scene also bleeds into the wider and mostly invisible world of America’s transient underclass, unemployed and underemployed street people locked out of much of the job market. We met a number of kids who described working full-time jobs that barely paid for crappy apartments and canned food. Why, these upwardly immobile asked, should they work for a deadening existence when they can dumpster dive and panhandle their way around the United States and even the world?
      [...]
      The street kids’ equitable sharing of the resources seems uncharacteristic of street gangs, which distribute resources and power in vertical hierarchies (according to our understanding as avid watchers of The Sopranos). Nevertheless, a cheerful kid named Joe Camel explained to us, there is a street kid hierarchy. Those who have been in the family longest can hustle potential customers at the start of Golden Gate Park – the prime real estate – whereas new kids start farther back in the park.
      [...]
      The park has gotten rougher over the past decade, so the family has too. Kenny, the former PhD, described how ten years ago, hippy street kids profitably sold weed to clamoring customers and comfortably financed their wanderings to the next music festival. But as the price has dropped – in half over ten years, according to Kenny, due to legal dispensaries and new sellers – kids need to hustle business and competition is fierce.

      Street kids can hitch across the country, but their territory in Golden Gate Park is strictly defined. Kids smoking near Hippy Hill pointed to a tree fifty yards away. If they tried to sell weed there, street kids belonging to a gang called the San Francisco Scum Fucks would beat them up. The Fillmore Kids, who sell near the park entrance, have also picked fights.

      Violence rarely exceeds fists, but street kids can’t rely on peace and love. Not only are there outsider gangs, but the more time we spent in the park, the more street kids we met who came to Haight-Ashbury as part of the transient community and feel no affinity for the neighborhood’s past. “There are fights in the park,” one kid told us, shaking off the idea of being a hippy and pointing to the brace on his foot. “I literally, literally broke my foot on someone’s ass in a fight. It’s not a good time for the park.”

      The kids despise the police, so the family also enforces its own rules. Momma Jude, who plays a motherly role for the kids, recalled the family throwing kids who robbed or fought into nearby “Hep-C” Pond (named for the hundreds of syringes coating the bottom) before telling them to scram.
      [...]
      Separated at night as they seek a spot to sleep, the street kids are vulnerable as lone gazelles. They are robbed so often that they often resort to hiding hundreds of dollars under trashcans. And while they warn each other when someone has been knifed in the park, no one has any idea what to do other than “be careful.”

  • 2013.09.14 - The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation?
  • 2014.05 - Elderly speak with students in other countries who want to practice English
  • 2014.08.06 - Pew Research Center - AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs
    • This looks really good
  • 2014.11.28 - The Guardian - 'Being homeless is better than working for Amazon'
  • 2014.11.30 - Newsweek - Where Have All the Good Jobs Gone? Ask a Robot.
  • 2017.12.29 - Washington Post - Even during one of the year’s coldest weeks, some homeless people are refusing to come inside

Organizations

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