Here’s a fact: in Utah, they’re ending homelessness by providing people with homes. Crazy blue-sky thinking, I know. Stick with me, because here come the interesting nuances. Firstly, it’s actually cheaper to provide permanent housing and a social worker for each individual than the average costs of ER and jail stays for this community (about $11,000 verses $16,670 per person per year. Read about it here). Secondly, Utah is aiming to end homelessness in the state completely by the year 2015. That’s an aim not just of making great strides or significant progress on the problem (which by the way, they already have done, reducing homelessness by 78% in the last 8 years. I’m going to call that “majestically effective”) but of making it a non-issue. The ten-year plan explains:
“Street homelessness has persisted for so long that it has practically become an accepted feature of city life, but it shouldn’t be. Homelessness persists because society’s responses haven’t tackled the causes, not because the problem is insurmountable.”
So often in life, problems that are extremely difficult to overcome get labeled as impossible to solve, whereas in fact we just don’t have knowledge, will or commitment in that present moment to immediately fix the problem. Utah got their facts straight, re-directed resources, laid out a time frame, and are on their way to achieving their goal. I’m not saying Utah’s suddenly become Utopia. Rather, that it’s brave of Utah to set their standard of success as zero homelessness. The parallels with Invisible Children’s approach to the LRA conflict aren’t too hard to find. Any aims short of ending the conflict once and for all, while potentially good and worthy, seem an insufficient response to the scale of the crisis. Yes, it’s idealistic, but it’s also appropriate to hold ourselves accountable to a standard of success that is defined by seeing every abducted woman, child and fighter come home from the LRA.
Think people should hear about this?