Homelessness

Paper Summary:

This paper examines two opposing attitudes towards the homeless from newspaper articles on the subject, one from Chicago about a Chicago building program, the other from Boston about a response to the homeless in California. It looks at how the issue of homelessness has unfortunately become a major bone of contention in American politics and the perception is that very little works to reduce the problem. It discusses a Chicago program that advocates positive action to address the problem and a California court decision that allows cities in effect to outlaw homelessness, to make it a crime and to drive the homeless away so they become someone else's problem. It evaluates how the Chicago approach offers some hope and is a reasonable, ethical, and just social response, while the California approach reported is an abrogation of social responsibility.

From the Paper:

"One approach is seen in the development of specialized housing for the homeless, though this approach requires carful planning. A report from Chicago concerns a project known as Lakefront, a nonprofit concern that has refurbished a large number of apartments for single low-income occupants. The organization has been in operation since 1989 and has produced nearly one-fourth of the 2,561 SRO units financed by the city's Department of Housing over that time. Lakefront is now the second-largest producer of such housing in the city, second only to the YMCA. The organization not only performs the needed service of refurbishing rental units and producing more housing for the poor, but it accomplishes this task on time and on budget with a high standard of construction. The organization also provides on-site social services for residents to help them with such problems as unemployment, substance abuse, and mental illness. The writer of the article makes clear that much of the success of the program belongs to the ability of its executive director to mediate between idealism and business needs."

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• Essay # 90000 : "Homelessness in Canada"

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