Long way for a home
Issue 89 - 22 February 2022 (8-min read)
If there is was one thing that has been truly global long before Covid-19, it’s homelessness. No matter if you’re walking in downtown Chicago or Metro Manila, the Waikiki beach in Honolulu or even Papeete town centre, you’re bound to come across someone sprawled under blankets on a sidewalk, some asking for change, others just getting a lie-in before heading to work.
This week in The Global Tiller, we look into exactly how global this phenomenon is and how has it been impacted by the pandemic? What can we learn from those who are trying to tackle this issue empathically, and not criminally?
No matter the size of your country’s GDP, homelessness is an issue facing us all. An estimated 100 million people are homeless worldwide, with the UN Human Settlements Program estimating at least 1.6 billion people to be living in inadequate housing. But to look at it simply as an issue of housing shortage would be incorrect. Homelessness is a complex issue, sitting at the intersection of public health, housing affordability, domestic violence, mental illness, substance misuse, urbanisation, racial and gender discrimination, infrastructure, and unemployment.
In my hometown of Karachi, most shelterless people are those without any evidence of citizenship or legal residency, making it virtually impossible for them to find a job let alone rent a room. And then there are those who have ended up on the streets because of family feuds, psychological issues or economic hardships. Like here in Tahiti.
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020, one of the primary concerns for governments worldwide was to make sure everyone stays home. But what happened to those who didn’t have a home?
In rich countries, suddenly, big coffers opened up to house the homeless. Australia moved thousands of homeless people into three, four and five-star hotels for up to a month while Britain managed to house every person in need of accommodation within days of announcing a national lockdown in March 2020, under its 'Bring Everyone In' program. Even here in Tahiti, the empty school buildings were opened up for the homeless people for the first few months of the lockdown.
These initiatives show that tackling homelessness isn’t that tall an order as it is perceived. If governments have the will and their priorities right, everyone can be sheltered. And there are some success stories that show just how to go about it.
Finland has become the first country in Europe to have consistently declining numbers of homeless people through its 'Housing First' policy — give accommodation first under no preconditions and then the social system will offer its services to help you get back on your feet. In fact, this is cheaper than accepting homelessness as the state now spends 15,000 euros less per year per homeless person than before.
Canada showed that if you want to get people out of homelessness, give them money. As part of an experiment with universal basic income, 50 homeless people in Vancouver received a lump sum of Canadian $7,500 with no preconditions or restrictions on how to use it. Compared to a control group of 65 homeless people who did not receive the cash, the former were able to move quickly into stable housing and saved enough to secure their financial future.
In places where government coffers are not big enough to offer hotel stays or UBI, the homeless population suffers the worst fate. To enforce lockdown in Karachi, the government didn’t really have a plan other than instructing law enforcement to forcefully clear out squatters from noticeably public places. Where they end up wasn’t the government’s concern. In Manila, the government set up makeshift shelters that ended up feeling like prison as many of them were prevented from leaving the premises, even to look for work and send money back to their families.
What is it about a person’s lack of a house that automatically makes us view them as criminals? In Cape Town, homeless people are 11 times more likely to be arrested than the general population. This isn’t because unhoused people are more likely to break the law, but rather, because police are more likely to interpret laws in ways that will render them as criminals.
A state program intended to steer the homeless away from the criminal justice system was introduced in Hawaiʻi but has failed to show significant results, mainly due to the failure of prosecutors and police to play their part. However, the same program showed vast improvements in Seattle. In Cape Town, Ndifuna Ukwazi is an organisation working to change colonial and apartheid bylaws that criminalise vagrancy. It offers empathic solutions, such as transferring empty offices and commercial buildings to charities that work with the large homeless population to figure out a solution that works for all.
Even if we boil it down to just numbers, Finland has shown that preventing homelessness is cheaper than allowing it to continue. So what prevents us from doing so?
This year and the next will be election year for many countries around the world. How can we make sure preventing homelessness makes it to at least one campaign platform?
Until next week, take care and stay safe.
Hira - Editor - The Global Tiller
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… and now what?
Every day, millions of people wake up, go to work, come back home in the evening and enjoy what is considered a normal life. It’s seen as normal because it’s what most people do. If you’re in this situation, you probably feel comforted, if not recognised by this sense of normalcy created by the mass effect of many people doing the same thing.
Once in this situation you interpret everything through that lens. It’s quite a human thing to do, and it does seem legitimate in many ways. We are social beings and for that matter we thrive in big numbers and in conformity. So whoever doesn’t fit in that frame is bound to be seen as abnormal, as not being right. And in those moments, comforted with the numbers, we tend to put ourselves in a position where we consider we know better.
This is not a blame game I’m playing here, but just stating a fact. We have all found ourselves in a situation where we do think we have understood the situation so we are better positioned to tell others what to do.
We live through those biases in many situations. Whenever a friend struggles in his or her love life, strong and long-lasting couples are prone to give advices. Whenever someone struggles in his or her career, people who have been in a job for a long time are jumping at the opportunity to provide some type of career coaching.
The problem is that we tend to consider our experience, our knowledge and our standards as applicable to everyone. If it worked for me, if this seems to be the way to go, then it should be for everyone. And those who don’t fit in this should learn from us.
On the other hand, how often do we like being on the receiving end of these situations? We all had some turbulences in our lives: personally, emotionally, professionally. And very often in those situation, what we ask for is a shoulder to cry on, an ear to be listened, a receiver in our need of venting. We indeed tend to forget that what is really needed in times of difficulties is to be understood, to be heard, to be able to tell people and hear them tell us that it’s ok, we have the potential to find the solutions.
So why is it that our system has been created and is maintained in an approach that is all about telling instead of listening. How is it that on a personal level we know that the reverse approach is better yet we can’t find a way to institutionalise this.
Institutions and administrations still have this very paternalistic approach of social issues. And the world of algorithms seems to be making it worse. Now data is the new institution, telling all human beings what we actually like, what we actually want, who we actually are. From social media to big data, we (actually, some) think that our world of algorithms will have answers to every problem in the world, if not the meaning of the universe (which we all know is "42" 😏).
We sometimes tend to forget that the answer lies better in the heart and mind of the beholder. This utilitarian approach of ours is not working: from homelessness to social media, we see how the system fails when it tries to find answers without asking people what they really need, or what is the source of their problems.
So as we’re all trying to think about what to do for homelessness, what to do for our world, how about we turn the tables and give the voice to those who suffer from those situations? How about we listen to the homeless first before thinking or implementing solutions for them? How about we listen to the youth before thinking or implementing solutions for climate change?
But maybe for this to happen we’ll have to change our labels. Maybe if we call ourselves iHumans, or iHomeless or iYouth we’ll finally be seen as smart enough to know that the best solutions, most of the time, come from sharing: our time, our minds, our resources…
Philippe - Founder & CEO - Pacific Ventury