Various Approaches to the Resolution of the Epidemic of Homelessness in the United States

The problem of homelessness in the United States has drawn a wide range of responses, from the perspectives of virtue ethics and distributive, commutative, and retributive justice. Both public and private entities have sought to reform laws and policies, as well as modify programs and individual behaviors in an attempt to help solve this grave and serious problem. This paper will explore why many of these programs have been misguided and ineffective, and will explain why distributive justice is likely the only one of these approaches that will have a consistently beneficial effect. To fully understand the range of approaches to this issue and their assorted benefits and drawbacks it is important to consider each one in greater detail.

The approach that has been most common in the United States in recent years, and has exacerbated the problem of homelessness most severely of all available approaches, is retributive justice, which has led to the criminalization of homelessness. As Kristen Brown states, “cities have increasingly moved toward enacting and enforcing laws that specifically criminalize homelessness in response to their concern about the use of public space. Cities enact and enforce these criminal laws as ‘quick-fix’ solutions to remove homeless people from sight, rather than addressing the underlying causes of homelessness” (1999). The criminalization of homelessness has become increasingly widespread, while the problem has only continued to grow, proving that punishing those who are most vulnerable and disenfranchised is an ineffective strategy that fails to adequately respond to the socioeconomic conditions that breed homelessness. Treating individuals who have already fallen so far down the socioeconomic ladder as criminals who have chosen this life is a failure of basic human compassion, and even worse has been demonstrably proven to be largely ineffective. This only becomes clearer when the issue of criminalization of homelessness is examined in greater detail.

One of the main reasons why the criminalization of homelessness is such an ineffective policy is the high rate of recidivism amongst those who are imprisoned. Jailing the homeless fails to provide them with the necessary resources to improve their situation, and instead keeps them out of the public eye for a short period of time only to have the issue eventually return. Even the government agencies responsible for the criminalization of homelessness recognize this issue, as is apparent from the Department of Justice document entitled “Reducing Homeless Populations Involvement in the Criminal Justice System,” which contains the statement that “The goal of this initiative is to reduce the rate of recidivism for offenders released from a juvenile residential facility and increase public safety. Demonstration projects provide necessary services to youth while in confinement and following their release into the community” (2012, p. 10). While it is certainly a positive development that government agencies have begun to attempt to implement programs for the incarcerated that work to provide them with life skills and prevent recidivism, it would likely be a more beneficial use of time and resources to simply provide these services within the community rather than tying them into the criminalization and persecution of the homeless population. This becomes even clearer when the economic and practical considerations related to the criminalization of the homeless are examined in greater detail.

Not only has criminalizing homelessness proven to be heartless and cruel, it has completely failed to adequately address the problem. There are several reasons why this strategy is an undeniably poor policy decision—as Brown (1999) states “Penalizing people for engaging in innocent behavior – such as sleeping in public, sitting on the sidewalk, or begging – will not reduce the occurrence of these activities or keep homeless people out of public spaces when they have no alternative place to sleep or sit or no other means of subsistence,” as well as being an inefficient use of police resources and valuable funding. Rather than wasting time and money on a strategy that does nothing to address the root issues at hand it is important to work towards solutions that ensure the homeless have the resources and support necessary to improve their situations. Even if it were possible to effectively criminalize homelessness and imprison the entire population of homeless people this strategy would be heartless and cruel, as well as prohibitively expensive. This becomes even clearer when the financial aspects of the situation are examined in greater detail.

Using the criminal justice system as the primary means of dealing with the issues facing the homeless is an extremely expensive and inefficient means of dealing with the problem. As the National Health Care for the Homeless Council states, “Criminal justice costs have skyrocketed over the last 30 years. The cost to local, state, and federal government has increased nearly six fold between 1982 and 2006, with $214 billion spent in 2006...The rise in incarceration (and related costs) has dramatic human and economic consequences for the nation as a whole and for those experiencing homelessness” (2011, p. 1). Funneling the homeless into the criminal justice system requires an extreme amount of funding, and places an enormous strain on the finances of both local and state governments. Therefore, in addition to being an insensitive and ruthless means of addressing the problem with little proven success, it is also an undeniably wasteful and inefficient means of dealing with the issue of homelessness. While the call for greater individual responsibility and respect for the economic and safety concerns of citizens surrounded by the problem of homelessness is appealing on a rhetorical level, it is simply not the most effective way of dealing with the problem. Retributive justice may be appropriate in a number of situations, but punishing people for circumstances that largely stem from socioeconomic events beyond their control is not an area where it can be effectively applied.

An approach that has been largely more effective in its ability to address the issue of homelessness has been the utilization of programs designed to aid the homeless in by providing education and access to social programs, approaches that stem from the tradition of distributive justice. One of the best examples of this type of program is FirstStep, which helps case managers and outreach workers get their homeless clients the access to the basic standards of living that will help them establish themselves as productive members of the community and work past their current situation. As their website states, “Your clients who are homeless will most likely need to access Federal mainstream benefit programs in five basic assistance categories: Food, Income, Health Care, Housing, and Employment. FirstStep provides information and tips on several mainstream benefit programs within each of these categories” (“Benefit Programs” n.d.). By ensuring that homeless individuals have access to these basic necessities programs like FirstStep help provide the disadvantaged with the necessary tools to better their situation and permanently rise above their current circumstances, rather than sweeping the problem out of sight for a short period of time with a high cost, as criminalization programs tend to do. While it may take a relatively long period of time for homeless individuals to become self-sufficient, it is worth it to provide them with the basics while they work toward that goal, so that eventually they can be permanently removed from their current circumstances. The government is clearly beginning to see the value in this sort of distributive justice, as an examination of the government programs available to the homeless reveals.

Even the government is attempting to turn away from the retributive policies they helped pioneer towards a more distributive vision of achieving justice for the homeless. As the website for the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness states, their plan for reducing the problem of homelessness relies on “Increasing access to stable and affordable housing, by providing affordable housing and permanent supportive housing,” and “increasing economic security, by expanding opportunities for meaningful and sustainable employment and improving access to mainstream programs and services to reduce financial vulnerability to homelessness” (2010). By redistributing some of the economic opportunity and wealth available in this country and using it to provide opportunities for the homeless to gain meaningful employment and reasonable housing it is clear that a serious impact can be made in the fight against homelessness. These sorts of programs are an invaluable way in which to combat the root issues that cause homelessness. Furthermore, there are a number of programs in existence seeking to ensure that the homeless have access to adequate health care, which is another absolutely essential issue in terms of its utility in working to solve the issue of homelessness.

One of the main issues that helped cause the epidemic of homelessness in the United States is the lack of adequate health services for those suffering from mental and physical disabilities. As the National Alliance to End Homelessness states, “On a given night in 2013, 109,132 disabled individuals, had experienced homelessness for a year or longer, or four episodes of homelessness in the last three years” (“Home Page” n.d.). The lack of availability of health care to those suffering from disabilities is one of the primary causes of the blight of homelessness, and vividly illustrates the utility of distributive justice in curbing the issue of homelessness. Only by providing access to these health care resources to all those who require them can this blight upon society be successfully and compassionately resolved. This issue is brought into stark focus when the myriad ways in which health care and homelessness intersect are examined, one of which is the overuse of emergency departments.

The inability to access proper health care has a much greater effect on the spread of homelessness than many individuals realize. As the National Alliance to End Homelessness states, “An acute behavioral health issue, such as an episode of psychosis, may lead to homelessness, and homelessness itself can exacerbate chronic medical conditions or lead to debilitating substance abuse problems. At the most extreme, a person can become chronically homeless when his or her health condition becomes disabling and stable housing is too difficult to maintain without help” (“Health Care” n.d.) The fact that unequal access to health care largely causes the spread of homelessness makes it quite clear that distributive justice is one of the most effective means to combat homelessness, particularly through the revamping of the medical system within the United States. While many may view some of the lifestyle related health issues suffered by the homeless as personal moral failings, particularly when referring to widespread substance abuse within the homeless population, it is clear that in many cases this issue is a result of the failed attempt to self-medicate illnesses that have been dismissed by the general population, and should be treated with compassion, understanding, and accurate medical remedies rather than through harsh criminal sentencing. Distributive justice has the greatest chance of addressing the root causes of homelessness, but there are other ways in which individuals and organizations seek to alleviate the issue, often with varying degrees of success.

One tactic utilized to help improve the situation of the homeless is to ensure access to education to homeless children, a tactic that borrows from the philosophy of virtue ethics. By providing homeless children with educational opportunities many proponents of this tactic hope that homeless children will develop character traits and skills that will help them work their way out of extreme poverty. As the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth states, “In a life filled with uncertainty, loss, and deprivation, school can be a place of safety, structure, and opportunity...homeless children and youth often are unable to attend, or even enroll in, school, which prevents them from obtaining the education that is both their legal right and their best hope of escaping poverty as adults” (“Facts and Resources” n.d. p. 2). While this is undoubtedly true to a certain degree, it is also true that the good character, virtues, morals, and critical thinking skills bestowed by education will likely fail to make a difference in a child’s life if the root causes of their poverty and lack of economic opportunity remain unaddressed. If a child has nowhere to live, no access to basic nutrition, no healthcare, and is criminalized as a result, the beneficial effects of education will largely fail to remedy their situation. Improving education access for homeless children is certainly a necessary and worthy goal, but it is only a small part of the complete course of action that needs to be taken to properly remedy the situation. This trend continues throughout many of the programs focused specifically on addressing the needs of homeless youth.

Programs dedicated to improving the virtue and character of the homeless are a disturbingly common pattern amongst those dedicated to working with homeless youth. As the website of one of the most prevalent of these organizations, YouthCare, states “On the streets, they learned to trust no one – here, they learn how to build relationships. On the streets, they focused on day-to-day survival – here, they focus on the future” (“Stabilize” n.d.). While it is certainly admirable to provide homeless youth with housing and resources that they can use to better themselves, the idea that a simple change in attitude will be enough to help them overcome the problems of systemic poverty and marginalization is condescending and dangerous. Changes in demeanor and perspective on the part of homeless who have received help from social services should be viewed more logically as a byproduct of economic and social empowerment, rather than as a factor that can catalyze this sort of change on its own. This is only one of the philosophies toward solving homelessness that can be marginally effective, but also have a number of detrimental aspects.

One of the best examples of the attempt to solve the issue of homelessness through the lens of commutative justice is the effort undertaken by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. As the VA website states, “VA is committed to ending Veteran homelessness by the end of 2015. No one who has served our country should ever go without a safe, stable place to call home” (“Homeless” n.d.). While this is certainly an admirable goal, in the end it is also slightly misguided, as it prioritizes the needs of certain homeless citizens over others and fails to address the needs of the homeless population as a whole. The view that homeless veterans are entitled to decent standards of living as part of the contractual obligation between the state and those who have committed to serve it is understandable and commendable, but in reality all homeless individuals are equally entitled to basic necessities as a result of the desire for a healthy and functioning society, not merely because some have served their country in the armed forces. Dividing the homeless population into groups and ranking them on the pretext that some deserve help more than others is a fundamentally ineffective and unfair approach to the problem of homelessness. These sorts of approaches are representative of the well-meaning, but often misplaced ideals that characterize treatment of the homeless within the United States.

30 years from now the population of this country will no doubt view our attempts to solve the problem of homelessness as primitive and misguided. Criminalizing the homeless is simply heartless and ineffective, and shows a complete ignorance of the socioeconomic and political factors that have led to the rapid expansion of the homeless population. Unfortunately, this is the most widespread approach to solving the problem, and one that will define our era’s approach to the issue. In addition, programs that view homelessness as an issue that can be solved through simple social and educational instruction for the most marginalized members of society also fail to recognize the truly insidious nature of the root causes of homelessness. Furthermore, the approach to homelessness that views some members of the homeless population as more deserving of social services than others is dangerously regressive and misguided. The strongest approach to dealing with the problem, one that provides access to basic necessities such as food, shelter, health care, and work for each and every member of the homeless population, is certainly one of the more expensive and complex solutions, but also one of the only approaches that has a real chance of eliminating homelessness permanently. This approach must quickly supplant the others in terms of popularity if future generations are to view our attempts to deal with this problem as satisfactory.

Works Cited

Brown, K. (1999, July/August). Outlawing homelessness. National Housing Institute, 106. Retrieved from http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/106/brown.htm

Benefit Programs. (n.d.). FirstStep. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from http://www.mrsh.net/firststep/firststep%20%28d%29/content/categories.html

Facts And Resources About the Education of Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness. (n.d.). National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from http://www.naehcy.org/sites/default/files/dl/homeless-ed-101.pdf

Health Care. (n.d.). National Alliance to End Homelessness:. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/mental_physical_health

Home Page. (n.d.). National Alliance to End Homelessness. Retrieved March 17, 2014, from http://www.endhomelessness.org

Homeless. (n.d.). Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from http://va.gov/HOMELESS/index.asp

National Healthcare for the Homeless Council. (2011). Criminal justice, homelessness & health. Retrieved from http://www.nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/CriminalJustice2011_final.pdf

Stabilize. (n.d.). YouthCare. Retrieved March 20, 2014, from http://www.youthcare.org/our-approach/stabilize

U.S. Department of Justice. (2012, May 8). Reducing homeless populations' involvement in the criminal justice system: Resource guide. Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/atj/doj-resource-guide.pdf