What is Needed to Combat Homelessness in New York City?
New York city is flooded with a huge amount of homeless people. The streets are now homes to the drug addicts and the mentally ill. It is a harsh reality in the United States of America, but one that has been proving very difficult to handle for quite a while and New York City seems to be suffering from this dilemma with almost 63,000 homeless men, women, and children.
To better combat the issue of homelessness in New York, you need to understand the primary causes of homelessness. Some of the main causes of homelessness in New York City is basically; domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, unaffordable housing, mental illness, etc. So many approaches have been made to combat homelessness in the country, but they have proved futile, here are some ideas that could help
1. Shelters
Of course, this is the first thing that would pop up in your head, and even this idea has been carried out before, but the difference now is the approach. Most of the shelters are poorly run, so the homeless would rather seek shelter on the streets than the home shelters.
If these shelters can be properly monitored to see that it is well run, then more homeless people would move into the shelters.
2. Low-cost housing
While there is a shelter, there should also be low-cost housing for families who lost their homes due to one reason or the other that made them homeless. This way they can be together and the more families are taken off the street, the more the number of homeless people on the street of New York reduces.
3. Proper documentation
There should be a proper documentation system, whereby all the homeless people are accounted for, this way when a homeless joins or leaves the system; it is recorded.
With this, you can track your progress and know if any approach you come up with is working or not.
Homelessness has been a major issue in New York City for a while, and it would not magically disappear one day. But with proper planning and funding, it can be combated.
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