Let's look at a scenario:
One of your downtown streets has a big pothole in it. Very big pothole. It's been growing for years, and other than a lot of new hires in the auto repair industry, nothing much has been done about it. Public pressure is rising, and finally, the city government has to act.
They do a very serious study... of why people drive into potholes. What are the characteristics of people who drive into potholes? Would it surprise you that there are a lot of bad drivers, nearsighted drivers, drunk or high or ill drivers, drivers who were going too fast to pay attention because they had poor time-management skills and were running late, drivers with ADD?In real life, of course, the city would just fill in the pothole. Wouldn't they? And a city that had a high occurrence of potholes would try to make its streets more pothole-proof -- wouldn't they?
The city gets to work... with a high-profile campaign to end pothole accidents. Towing companies and auto repair companies that wish to do any business with the city are required to refer the drivers in pothole accidents to counseling, so that they will get the support they need to avoid potholes in the future. Outreach workers look for drivers who fit the Pothole Accident Profile before they fall into potholes, and help get them the support they need so that they can avoid even their first pothole.
In the meantime, the pothole continues to expand. Its impact on traffic patterns affects everyone in the city, not just those who fall into it.
Homelessness is a hole in the street. The people who fall into that hole need help to get out of it. They have problems that need to be addressed so that they don’t fall into it again. All of that is necessary and worthwhile action. It will not end homelessness, any more than auto repair and driver education will end potholes.
My husband has a doctorate in math, and I checked this with him to make sure I'm right: If you have 100 people and 80 houses, at one person per house you will have 20 homeless people. If you move all 20 of those people into houses, you will displace 20 currently housed people, and still have 20 homeless people. If you improve the health, income, and education level of all the people currently homeless, you will have 20 healthy, wealthy, and well-educated homeless people.
I also checked this math with him: If you start with 20 homeless people, build 20 new houses and tear down 30, you will have 30 homeless people. The only thing he found wrong with that is that in real life, we are losing housing at four times the rate we are creating it, not one-and-a-half times.
Forty years ago, people had problems. We had alcoholics, drug addicts, mental illness, domestic violence, people with physical disabilities and severe illnesses who were not able to work, people getting out of prison, people getting out of the hospital, people getting out of foster care – all of the reasons given for why people are homeless today. We had a fraction of the numbers of homeless people that we have today.
What has happened over the last forty years?
- The income of the lower 20% of the population has gone down.
- The federal government has invested less and less money in housing. Since 1996 they've spent $0.
- In private housing development, a concerted PR campaign to sell the virtues of an unrestrained free market has promoted getting the most profit out of every square inch of real estate, resulting in the continual destruction of low-cost housing in order to put up high-cost housing.
- The cost of health care has continued to rise, while less and less of the population have any form of health insurance.
- The numbers of homeless people have skyrocketed.
What happened in the last forty years was, we created homelessness. In order to end it, we have to reverse what we did to create it.
Current community efforts to help homeless people should continue. When we have a flood, we have to get people to high ground, get them fed and keep them warm.
To prevent the next flood, we need to do more.
***
To be continued...
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Comments: 3
"simplicity is the source of all truth" ~Lao Tzu ............with that quote in mind,edit your speech to keep on target so as not to distract from the pt. of focus....a bit wordy and nix the "my husband blah de blah" sentences....if you want to interject some levity,best to do in the first line.....any stats are good and should of course be delivered with appropriate inflections to drive home the intentions of citing stats...and of course indicate where the stats came from (ie. dept. of whatever,org. studies,etc.)....the numbered info is good and short enough for most in the audience to digest....make the pothole comparison shorter....in your summation, list at least 3 or 4 key things about the homeless population that need to be addressed sooner than later....
in my opinion, researching what other cities/states/countries are doing in the way of innovative, practical solutions and then replicating those models is one smart way to proceed....good luck! (let me know how it goes)
regards, gayle in WA state
Regards,
Doyle I <~~~~~
I pictured the five bullets as a Powerpoint slide (not for real but it is a great exercise) and they are imbalanced. The first two are terse stats, the last two probably could be - the third is rambly and sees pointless by comparison. I'd look at reordering, balancing the length of the bullets, and either using one style of data or not using the stats for the first two - it sets up expectations that #3 blows out of the water and I lose momentum.
All in all, it looks like you have a good handle on this. Good luck and let us know how it goes.