10
Year Plan to End Homelessness
|
| by Richard R. Troxell
-- July, 2007 |
| In communities all across America,
local activists and governments are participating with the federal government
in a historic initiative to end "chronic homelessness." To this end, we
are devising local ten year plans to accomplish this task, but just as there
is a myriad of local concerns that we must bring to focus, there are also
external factors at the national level affecting our communities that must
be addressed if we are to be successful in this herculean expenditure of
time, money, and energy. |
| This process must begin
with a clarion call at the national, state, and municipal levels that institutions,
agencies, hospitals, the criminal justice system: "Discharge no one into
Homelessness" and that the federal government provide the necessary funding
to make that possible. |
| Second, the federal government
must provide livable incomes for persons who have been deemed disabled and
eligible to receive Supplemental Security Income, which currently provides
a monthly benefit of only $623.00, and that it cease its practice of destabilizing
marriages in which both members receive disability benefits but receive
fewer dollars than if they were as individuals, Third, we must ensure
that there exists a National Health Care System* so that when the working
homeless exit homelessness and again become the "working poor" and they
are no longer eligible for health care from our local clinics, that they
do not end up returning to a state of homelessness due to illness. Fourth,
we must create a National Housing Trust Fund that will ensure an adequate
national supply of housing at all income levels beginning at a level that
is below 30% of MFI. |
| Finally, the federal
government must fix the federal minimum wage and establish a Universal Living
Wage by ensuring that anyone working a 40-hour week will be able to at least
afford basic rental housing wherever that work is done throughout the United
States. |
| As a first step, we are suggesting
that the federal government support a ten-year plan to fix the federal minimum
wage and ensure that it relates to the local cost of housing across the
United States thus ending economic homelessness for at least one million
minimum wage workers. |
| ULW Ten Year Plan: |
| Over the next ten years, the
federal minimum wage will be increased, first by one tenth of the then remaining
amount needed to afford basic rental housing in accordance with the ULW
standard found at www.UniversalLivingWage.org. This will be repeated during
each remaining year based on the number of years remaining, until the wage
reaches the Universal Living Wage goal in each geographic area as set forth
by using the HUD Fair Market Rents. If at any point, the remainder to be
increased over the ten year intervals reduces to $.50/hour, the wage will
be increased by that remaining amount in the following year. From then on,
the wage will index to the local cost of housing using the ULW Formula. |
| The federal government must
collaboratively partner with this nation's communities and similarly devise
national Ten Year Plans of similar or lesser duration, to create national
affordable housing in adequate numbers in addition to devising a comprehensive
national health care system. |
| *All Discharge planning should
begin at the time of intake into any facility or institution. Also, healthcare
naturally includes an adequate amount of substance abuse treatment and beds
that are available "on demand." This means availability within three hours
of request. |
