Homes for the Homeless

Homes for the Homeless is a very interesting video. Unlike most programs to aid the homeless, there are various legal risks associated with the benefits. The program is called "Take Back the Land" and is based almost entirely out of compassion and empathy rather than practicality and appearance. Max and his team are so committed to solving the problem of homelessness that they are willing to break into foreclosed homes. The group has an interesting perspective that nothing is worth having homeless people left on the street while houses lay empty. This is especially true as they pay utilities and protect the houses from damage from others, benefiting the bank. From all the protests and break ins, no body, worker or resident, as been arrested. The way that they accomplish this is by utilizing the media. When the cameras are rolling, nobody wants to pull a young girl from her house and arrest her mother. The police also have no interest in pulling apart families and putting more children into foster care.

This organization and their actions raise important questions to think about. Ideally, housing would be a guaranteed human right. Everybody would always have food and shelter if we lived in a perfect world. However, this is not a realistic goal in our present society. We can not expect, with all the greed of the people in power, that free public housing will be available for everybody who needs it. If that does become I goal, it is a huge possibility that the middle class will be taxed so badly to accomplish it that they may become homeless. Unfortunately, there is no way to differentiate between people who are down on their luck and desperately searching for work and those who would abuse the system. The wealth gap is too large and the wrong side may likely suffer if this became the reality. The bigger crimes are those of white collar crime, such as taking money meant for the homeless to buy a large watermelon statue.

I have very conflicting feelings on the idea of this program. The benefits and positives are clearly there. They take a very direct approach of solving a very complex problem. They take homeless people and just put them into the empty homes. While this is a choice that every family makes, I worry that the risk is just too large. They put these parents in danger of being sent to prison and being separated from their children. The run the risk of looking like criminals and preventing them from doing more good through a legal outlet. They also may put forth a negative view of the individual homeless person by only focusing on families. The view that families are more trust worthy and that individual homeless people may cause trouble not only excludes a huge part of the homeless population but creates a negative image and stereotype. The meaning behind their actions is good, they truly want to do the right thing. Idealistically, this is a great idea. However, when it comes to reality, there may be too many problems to say it's worth it.


http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n12/MiamiCondoInvestments/miami_available_condos-7-09.gif

Here is a graph showing how many available condos there are in Miami. Even though there is an abundance of open living area, they were among the most affected in the mortgage crisis and have a huge homelessness problem. Through combined efforts, they have lowered the homeless population by 90%.


http://www.camillus.org/clientuploads/img/News/homeless_awareness_feed_met.gif