Imagine There’s No Homelessness

Guest Opinion

By Karen Mulvahill | Dec. 3, 2022

’Tis the season of magic and wonder and imagining. So imagine if you will…

It’s Christmas Eve and you’re not sitting in your favorite recliner with a frothy cup of eggnog. You’re sitting in a ragged tent under a bridge surrounded by cold, damp cement and wind that swirls through the thin nylon walls. There’s no roasted turkey or mince pie, only half of a cold hamburger. Or it’s Hanukkah, and you’re not surrounded by family, feeling their love and support. Instead you’re terrified for your children. How will you feed them today?

More than a half million people in the United States will spend the holidays homeless. This is not a Hallmark holiday special with a happy ending. Many will be in the same situation when the next holiday season rolls around.

In 2020, more than 30,000 people in Michigan experienced homelessness at some point during the year. The northern Lower Peninsula saw a significant increase in homelessness from 2020-2021, with the northeast Lower Peninsula homeless population increasing by 35 percent and northwest by 16 percent.

Statewide, the overall level of homelessness declined slightly. However, requests for information about housing options increased 43 percent; requests for assistance with utility payments increased 37 percent; and requests for one-time payments to avoid eviction increased 16 percent. Thus, even if people are currently housed, housing insecurity is high. (Ending Homelessness in Michigan, 2021 Annual Report, State of Michigan)

It’s convenient for us as a society to blame those experiencing homelessness for their plight. We’re fond of the axiom, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” If you are homeless, some conclude, you must not have wanted to put forth the effort to learn to fish.

But what if you can’t afford a fishing rod? Or there just aren’t any? What if you had been born with a mental or physical disability? What if you had to work 60 hours a week at your minimum-wage job to afford the cheapest rental in your area, and then you couldn’t even find one? What if you found one and then a sudden health crisis caused you to lose your job? What if you fled your home because of domestic violence and had nowhere else to go?

The causes of homelessness are various and systemic and usually involve one or more of the following: unemployment or under-employment, health, racial discrimination, and domestic violence. Still, it’s not hard to pinpoint the major cause of the problem. From 1985 to 2020, rent prices increased 149 percent, while income grew just 35 percent (Housing and Urban Development; U.S. Census Bureau).

What’s being done? At the state level, The Michigan Campaign to End Homelessness, created in 2006, utilized the resources of various government departments and nonprofit organizations to develop a 2020-2022 State Action Plan. The goal is to make homelessness “rare, brief, and one-time.” According to their 2021 Annual Report, a number of programs have been initiated to offer support to the homeless. Emergency assistance programs created due to the pandemic doubtless played a big role in keeping the level of homelessness from spiking.

At the federal level, the housing choice voucher program is a critical tool for combating homelessness. These vouchers provide financial support to very low-income households looking for rental housing. But the number of eligible households far outstrips the availability of the vouchers. Years-long waits are common. The Build Back Better Act, passed by the House but not the Senate, included $24 billion in housing vouchers, which would have provided support to more than 300,000 households. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which was enacted, eliminated this incremental investment in people entirely.

Following Hurricane Ian in Florida, $19 billion was appropriated to assist with recovery efforts. The photos of wrecked homes, many of them ocean-front mansions, are impressive. I suggest that the consistent level of homelessness in our country is also a disaster, albeit a more easily ignored one.

A bill introduced by Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) called The Ending Homelessness Act of 2021 would expand and transform the housing choice voucher program into a federal entitlement that would be phased in over eight years. So far, no action has been taken on this act. Furthermore, a 2019 version of this bill was introduced and went nowhere.

At the local level, support for the homeless varies. Although many fairly sizable towns in our area have no shelters at all, in Traverse City there are a number of organizations dedicated to providing shelter, food, and counseling.

If imagining being homeless scares you as it does me, what can we do? First of all, be respectful to people experiencing homelessness. Contribute food and financial support to our local shelters and food pantries. Volunteer time to these organizations. If you are a business owner, employ those who are homeless. Learn about the issue and advocate at local, state, and national levels.

“Imagine all the people living life in peace.” —John Lennon

Karen Mulvahill is a writer living in northern Michigan.