Housing

The academic journal literature on homelessness is vast, but during the past decade oversimplification has ruled. The Obama administration made “Housing First!” the official U.S. policy, with homeless people to be given their own apartments. Programs that emphasized “Clean and Sober first” became ineligible for federal aid, and mental health issues became secondary. Typical academic analyses of homelessness found — surprise! — that “Housing First!” is great. A lot of scholarly research up to 2009, though, revealed homelessness complexities. Here are four examples:  Key insights:Homeless adults who are alcoholics have “unusually high levels of mental health symptomatology…. Adults with alcohol problems are so debilitated that they readily become homeless (as compared to being domiciled under very trying circumstances) when also Read More ›

Squatter City #Seattle‘s Wallingford neighborhood has 5 houses on same street w/homeless people staying w/out permission. Many are breaking in from @WSDOT‘s Ship Canal Encampment. Once again @weheartseattle is back trying to help. Dropping FULL STORY this week. Following Up @KC_RHA says outreach workers are checking in on campers at @WSDOT‘s Ship Canal encampment. But right now, even the house squatters say @weheartseattle volunteers are only ones trying to help them find other options. Update Saturday morning, neighbors in Wallingford say SQUATTERS from @WSDOT‘s Ship Canal Bridge encampment started a fire inside a house on 5th Ave NE. Today, the squatters came back. But neighbors MOBILIZED and had a message for them. Now the house is boarded up. Saturday’s Fire Read More ›