Why The Housing Bust Is Good For The Homeless

[babylonsister]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/149007

Hope Amid a Downturn
By Matthew Philips | NEWSWEEK
Published Jul 26, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Aug 4, 2008


The real-estate bust is creating an unexpected benefit: housing for the homeless. Even as the foreclosure crisis pushes some low income families into shelters, chronic homeless rates are shrinking thanks in part to the foreclosed and vacant buildings social-service agencies can now afford to buy. In Denver, persistent homelessness is down 36 percent since 2005, as nonprofits have turned seized apartment buildings and run-down motels into 1,242 rooms, complete with access to addiction treatment and health care. A Wooster, Mass., nonprofit will soon close on five multifamily duplexes that will provide 20 to 30 units for the homeless, and Ventura County, Calif., is in talks with local banks to take over 100 homes for permanent use. "These are opportunities we haven't seen in decades," says Philip Mangano, the Bush administration's homelessness czar.

Historically, economic downturns are good for the homeless, just as booms tend to be bad. During the 1990s, despite record spending and increases in shelter beds under the Clinton administration, homeless rates jumped 50 percent. "The prosperity always trickles up, not down," says Mangano. For now, advocates are grabbing what they can.

© 2008

[aquart]

1. Let me get this straight:

People who lose their own homes and become homeless are now being put into those homes as public charges because social service agencies are buying them from the banks? With our tax money?

And this is considered a GOOD thing?

[Trillo]

2. "The prosperity always trickles up, not down,"

Seems to me it's a good thing, if it's true. Is the homeless population shrinking?

[babylonsister]

3. In Denver it looks like it is...

In Denver, persistent homelessness is down 36 percent since 2005,

[Mojorabbit]

5. I want to see the homeless

have a place to stay but with one in approx 170 homes going into foreclosure I am taken aback. I think I read that here in Fl it is one in eighty homes being foreclosed on. I would rather see people be able to keep their homes in the first place as opposed to ending up on the street.

[Trillo]

6. I spent a short time looking for some statistics,

it seems they're only available in localities, and with difficulties in actually counting, and just judging from the quick search, it seems a mixed bag. So who knows whether the item is, in fact, true. The homeless could just be disappearing into areas where they're not typically noted.

I'm all for welfare from the bottom, so that wealth can trickle up.

When people are losing their homes due to economic conditions beyond their control, and due to slimy-smart slick talkers, some kind of aid would seem to be appropriate there, too, but with additional regulations to hold the slimy in check in the future.

We've got plenty of corporate welfare for the rich. That aid needs to shift downwards, to make best use of the trickle up effect of wealth. Ending the war would certainly help, probably near immediately.

The U.S. government could grant reservation lands to the homeless, as well, similar to what was done with the American Indians a century or so back, if there was a desire to get serious about the problem.

The homeless problem really seemed to swell with Reagan and his thrust for an 800-ship Navy. Maybe less Naval vessels would help. Hard to justify shrinking the military when you're at war, however.

[TomInTib]

4. Obviously, aquart. "Philip Mangano, the Bush administration's homelessness czar."

Dang, we have a "Homelessness Czar".

I though the article was from The Onion, at first glance.

Jeebus, save us all...