For most of the 21st century, we have collectively referred to the dominant urban problem in the U.S. as the issue of homelessness. Virtually all other urban headaches have been related, in one way or another, to this modern quandry, though the problem itself is not new.
A great part of why we have not solved the problem of homelessness in American cities, counties and states is our continuing capacity to misname it and badly focus on what we are directly looking at. The problem is not homelessness per se but rather the compound problems of the unsheltered and unhoused, particularly the lack of adequate sheltered units.
In other words, the issue is how to increase the available capacity to provide adequate residential shelter for many more people. That’s a problem of how to provide available and affordable housing for all of one’s population, not a problem of how to police crazy homeless people invested in criminal and untoward behavior.
Great problem-solving first requires clear sight and understanding of the contours of the issue at hand. In order, for example, to accomplish the great success of the WWII D-Day invasion into Normany and Europe, which seemed impossible at the time, and which led to breaking the back of the German war machine and eventually ending the war, there had to be a clarity of not only purpose but in recognizing the nature of the problem facing the Allies.
The individual experiences of prior British war losses to Germany, the immensity of the German war machine, the availability and substance of supply lines, etc., were all factors in the eventual plan, but the roadmap to victory was mainly dependent on a clear idea of what guises the enemy would take and what resources the Allies would bring to the fore. It was master planning and execution at its best, with good luck and timing as strong assets.
To conquer the modern issue contemporarily called homelessness, we first must begin calling it and seeing it for what it is and is not, then do that kind of deeply serious planning and execution represented by the Allied War effort. Homelessness is the modern term used to describe individuals lacking a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence including those individuals residing in emergency shelters, transitional housing, or places not meant for human habitation like parks, cars or under freeways.
Homeless individuals—those lacking a steady place to live and rest— are most usually blamed for their own dire circumstances because of perceived laziness, incompetence, or criminality. Thus the problem of ‘homelessness’ currently relies too much on officials focusing on a homeless victim’s failure in life to procure regular sheltered housing. It is regularly perceived as a personal failure to cope.
Calling it an issue of the Unhoused, or housing insecurity, changes the focus. Now it can be about attacking the lack of adequate available and affordable housing units in a particular locale, like the city of Los Angeles (which is doing much better at that issue now, under Mayor Karen Bass). The focus becomes on increasing the availability of sheltered housing units, rather than on constantly lamenting the expected criminality of the unhoused.
In recent years advocates and activists have begun to use the word unhoused or houseless to describe individuals without a physical address. However, government agencies and research institutions continue to use the word homeless when reporting on people experiencing regular and repeated bouts of housing insecurity. In order to craft the needed master plan to actually solve the problem of the Unhoused and the Unsheltered, the terminology must catch up to the realities of the situation.
As Los Angeles moves forward inexorably in solving its Unhoused problem, the necessary changes in the terminology must lead that process. The primary problem concerning this issue as we are facing it currently is in formulating a master stroke strategy based on how to provide the necessary affordable housing units as the population explodes, not just focusing on increased policing for an anticipated rise in criminality of those without adequate shelter and access to affordable housing units.
Without a doubt, we need more affordable housing built, not necessarily more and better armed policemen.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
