A Guidebook for City and County Managers by James M. Bourey

Author:James M. Bourey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Foodbanks and church programs do a great service in providing food to the homeless. As this book is being written, they have been inundated due to the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this should turn around with the vaccines that have been produced and the recovery of the economy. Local governments can leverage the private sector contributions by providing their own funding.

In most communities, there are substantial emergency shelter opportunities for the homeless, particularly during the cold winter months in the harsher climates. Governmental support for these is important but does not need to take a large amount of resources. The biggest contributions must go toward building housing that can shelter those who cannot afford housing. This housing can provide just the very basics for shelter and should be rather small. There are an increasing number of modular systems that can meet this need at a much more reasonable cost than traditional housing options. They generally are the scale of what is being called tiny houses.

In order to address the issue of attracting more and more homeless to a community, cities need to establish a list of existing homeless who are eligible to receive this housing. The city should provide permanent housing to those who sign up first. Once that group is housed, the city can move on to others who sign up after the first group. While the homeless are indeed suspicious of identifying themselves, the opportunity to live in a tiny house does offer a nice incentive. This incentive needs to be combined with the actions taken to eliminate encampments as an option for them.

Addressing the addiction and mental health issues of many homeless persons is vital to their well-being and to provide an opportunity for them to become self-supporting individuals. Indeed, many have excellent skills and could be gainfully employed if their mental health and addiction issues were resolved.

It is doubtful that we will solve all our homeless issues any time soon, but we can make a huge difference by pursuing these strategies. It will certainly take a commitment and substantial resources to make that critical difference.

As we examine the major issues in our cities and counties, another highly visible and important concern is the transportation system, which is part of the lifeblood for communities. Transportation is the subject of the following chapter.

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