HOMELESSNESS
Housing is human right, not just a commodity.
SAMPLING HOMELESSNESS
City staff, a city council member & NGO officers sampling homelessness for themselves in December of 2018.
Top left: A Sequim city video of Charlie Bush, former Sequim city manager & 3 public works employees sampling a cold winter night outdoors in 2018 in order to get a taste of homlessness.
Top right: This same story in the Peninsula Daily News.
Bottom left: The Port Angeles city manager Nathan West and city council member Mike French spent a cold winter night outdoors in December 2018, sampling homelessness.
Bottom right: Amy Miller & Shenna Younger out on another cold winter night in December 2018, also sampling homelessness.
Books
This book, co-written by a professor at our own University of Washington, provides a definitive insight to the link between homelessness & our national housing problem.
National bestselling author of APOCALYPSE NEVER skewers progressives for the mishandling of America’s faltering cities.
Progressives claimed they knew how to solve the homelessness crisis, inequality, and crime. But in cities they control, from San Francisco to Seattle, progressives made those problems worse.
Michael Shellenberger has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for thirty years. During that time, he advocated for the decriminalization of drugs, affordable housing, and alternatives to jail and prison. But as homeless encampments spread, and overdose deaths skyrocketed, Shellenberger decided to take a closer look at the public policy failures.
Editor's comment: This book is one of the leading criticisms of the "Housing First" approach, as well as the "Harm Reduction" approach, and thus it merits inclusion in the discussion about homelessness. However, Shellenberger's book has its own critics. https://homelessness.ucsf.edu/blog/san-fransicko-incorrect-about-housing-affordability-and-homelessness
VIDEOS
Here's a TED Talk by Lloyd Pendelton of Utah, who led Utah's Homelessness Task Force in 2006, using a Housing First approach.
There are 3 categories of homelessness
- Temporary homelessness – 75%
- Episodic homelessness – 10%
- Chronic homelessness – 15%
Utah used “Housing First” and the “Harm Reduction” approach from 2005 to 2015. They achieved a 91% reduction.
However, homelessness in Utah has gone up again later, but not to previous levels.
Here's a TED talk by Mayor Richard Berry of Albuquerque and his "Work First" approach.