who would have thought that the solution to homelessness is providing people with housing? 🧐
The solution isn’t 100 % perfect, there’s a lot of people who aren’t technically homeless because they live with other people for free etc. but yeah this does majorly help reduce risks for vulnerable people.
Here’s the big thing about it that might scandalize Americans even more so than the idea of free housing: you don’t have to do anything to “deserve it.” Most countries use what’s called “the staircase model” – you start by being in shelter, then maybe a halfway house, then permanent housing. You can “move up” by going through rehab or getting a job or accessing other services. The idea is that housing is something you get as a reward for good behavior, not something you get by right.
But with the housing first model, you get the house first, and then deal with everything else. It’s a lot easier to stop using drugs and alcohol when you have other ways to pass the time and aren’t under constant stress. It’s a lot easier to get a job when you have an address to put on your applications. It’s a lot easier to treat mental illness when you’re in a safe place that doesn’t add to your fear and pain. But if your mentality is that housing is something only the morally pure and socially acceptable deserve, and the only way to get it is for people to jump through hoops to prove their goodness, then of course you’re going to hate this model.
