Affluent cities often present the illusion that all is well. On a street dotted with million dollar homes, it’s easy to believe that abject poverty couldn’t possibly co-exist with the upper class. But a closer look often reveals a sobering reality, as Gunther Stern discovered in Georgetown, one of Washington, DC’s wealthiest suburbs with a median household income of $155,000. Stern, recently profiled in the Washington Post, is the executive director of the Georgetown Ministry Center, which provides assistance to the city’s most vulnerable residents. There are more than 7,000 people without permanent housing in the area, but Georgetown is far from the only wealthy municipality with a significant homeless population. The same story repeats itself in cities throughout the country. For all the political platforms promising to help the middle and working classes, few of those with power even acknowledge the people living at the fringes of society. It’s a gambit that reads like a belief that if we close our eyes, the problem will go away. It isn’t working.
How Much Homelessness Can be Found in the Wealthiest Places?
Globally, developing, and low-resource nations have high homelessness rates. Manila, Philippines has the highest percentage of homeless persons on the planet, with more than 70,000 living on the streets. Mexico City, Mexico; Mumbai, India; and Jakarta, Indonesia are not surprising entries on the list of the 15 cities with the most homeless residents. However, six of these cities are in the US, the richest country in the world by total individual wealth and the third-richest by per capita wealth. New York ranks just behind Manila for its population of more than 60,000 homeless. Los Angeles ranks third in the world at 57,000, while Boston, with more than 16,000, comes in just behind Sao Paulo, Brazil. DC, San Francisco, and Phoenix make the list as well. Switzerland and Australia are the only two nations richer by per capita wealth than the US. There are no official homeless rates available for Switzerland; while it exists, particularly in Geneva and Zurich, it does not appear to be remotely on the scale seen in the US. In Australia, there are 105,000 homeless. In the US, there is more than five times that number.
Despite the country’s slow but steady recovery from the 2008 recession, conditions for Americans at the bottom of the income scale have become worse. The National Alliance to End Homelessness found that, although the unemployment rate dropped between 2012 and 2013, the number of people in poverty increased in half the nation’s states. “Doubling up,” the practice of housing extended family or friends under one roof, has increased by 67 percent since 2007. Nearly 50,000 US veterans are homeless, and there are more than 45,000 homeless minors without adults.
What Are the Impediments to Assistance?
How can areas with so much money have a homelessness crisis, and what can be done to fix it? Simplistic answers to the latter question abound, from the well-intentioned to the grossly uncharitable. While some posit solutions like building mini-shelters and affordable micro-housing, others want to foist the problem off on some other community by running all the homeless out of town. In San Jose, California, the median home price is now $575,000 and nearly 20 percent of homes on the market exceed the million-dollar mark. Yet the city, with a homeless population of more than 5,000, recently destroyed an area called “the Jungle,” an unofficial tent city for those without shelter. As the displaced former residents of the Jungle set up new campsites, they were summarily evicted from these places, as well.
Even the most benevolent plans have their drawbacks. A large portion of the homeless community suffers from untreated mental illness – the National Coalition for the Homeless reports that up to a quarter of the homeless population has a severe mental illness. The nature of this illness and the stumbling blocks it presents often prevent them from realizing they need help. City ordinances can make it difficult or impossible to open more shelters or create affordable housing. Often, the residents in the community fight against resources for those in poverty, believing that this assistance will serve as a magnet, attracting more homeless people and increasing crime rates. Funding may be the biggest obstacle; most assistance organizations receive the bulk of their capital from grants, donations, or religious coffers. The best efforts of non-profit organizations simply cannot keep up with the tide of homelessness.
What Is the Gentrification Conundrum?
The median list price for a home in New York City is more than half a million dollars, and that figure doubles in areas like Manhattan. A lack of affordable housing is part of the problem, along with the gentrification of areas that were once accessible to the low-income population. In 2009, the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness reported that the higher rents and housing costs associated with “gentrifying” a neighborhood – the influx of affluent, highly educated people to an area where this demographic previously did not exist – often price the existing residents out of their own homes. This disproportionately affects a sector referred to as the “precariously housed,” those who are only a paycheck away from eviction or foreclosure. The ICPH’s study, conducted in Manhattan and Brooklyn, found a significant correlation between gentrification and a spike in homeless rates. In Seattle, this correlation has increased the city’s homeless population as the median home price has climbed to more than $440,000, despite the fact that more than a billion dollars has poured into the city’s Committee to End Homelessness over the last decade.
Gentrification is a natural result of growth in a city where the housing market can’t meet demand. Though proponents of gentrification may argue that new construction and new businesses create jobs and help everyone, this is simply not the case. These jobs are either temporary, as is the case for construction, or they are filled by the unemployed middle class rather than the homeless. Home prices have soared to record-breaking highs in the last two decades, creating a chain reaction in which greater numbers of people must seek housing that’s affordable to them. As home prices skyrocket, the poverty gap widens.
2 Point Highlight
Switzerland and Australia are the only two nations richer by per capita wealth than the US.
Funding may be the biggest obstacle; most assistance organizations receive the bulk of their capital from grants, donations, or religious coffers.
