A unique Alternative in Combating Poverty

“instead of spending billions building affordable housing lets spend billions building up people to be able to afford housing”
                                                Joseph Wilson
This is How I arrived at this Train Of thought!
What they are not telling you, is this the number of homeless people in America is dropping and not rising. In the minds of most people it is a problem that is increasing with each and every day. However this is not something that is based on fact but rather based on fear.
There is A reason For there Being Not an increase but rather a decrease In The Homeless population, And That Can be contributed To HPRP (Or American Recovery And reinvestment Act)  the rapid rehousing Program, In the Height of The economic decline and The recent Hit to the Housing Market And failing banks, Rapid rehousing was instituted so Others who recently Defaulted on their Mortgages didn’t face The inhumanity of becoming Part of America’s Homeless population and were spared this Indignity By this Program by going from Foreclosure To Section 8 homes. In most cases.

Hud Releases 2011 Point in time Count.
 This afternoon, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released the results of the January 2011 point-in-time count. According to their report, 636,017 people were homeless in the United States on a single night in January. This represents a 2.1 percent decline from the year before. Earlier this morning, HUD and the Department of Veterans Affairs announced a 12 percent decline in the number of veterans experiencing homelessness. The number of veterans experiencing homelessness decreased from 76,329 homeless veterans to 67,495 homeless veterans between January 2010 and January 2011.
According to press releases, these declines are largely attributed to federal programs providing housing to homeless people and families, including the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program and the HUD-VA Supportive Housing Program.
While  Stalling The Increase In the Homeless Population at Large It in No way Fixed the Problem. It did However Keep The Population From Growing. I contend That we no Longer Need affordable Housing and It’s Time Has Long Ago Come and Gone and was from The very  Beginning, An Ill Conceived Plan In combating Homelessness and Poverty.so Lets Look at Affordable Housing while asking Ourselves.
1.Is It Affordable?   And   2. Is It sustainable?
Affordable Housing In the Minds Of Most people Is as Follows A dwelling That one could afford, while receiving The Federal Minimum wage. Poverty Level Is Deemed as being $10,980 for a single Adult and $3,820 for each additional family Member, This Is The Federal poverty level and varies To a degree from state to state. as does Housing Cost However when Organizations Talk of affordable Housing what They are talking about Is Federally subsidized Housing, those accepting Low income and section 8 vouchering. This Is what I am asking Is federally subsidized Housing affordable? In Short No would Be My answer.
This Because It comes at 2 High A cost and In that, It Eliminates A vast Majority of Homeless and Impoverished Individuals. Because one Must first have an income to qualify For Housing. And Often That income Must exceed federal poverty Levels Or you must Qualify for section 8 subsidies. and the cost to the American Tax payer Is on a national Average $160,000 per unit to build without cost overruns and then it through section 8 vouchering, cost an average of  $9,000- $16,000 annually to sustain depending on the size of the family and the part of the country You are in. People often do not understand this and say that is Not right These people are low income and only pay $130 a month for rent or whatever their income requires them to pay. and this is true what They overlook is that the balance of the rent they pay ( Local Market Pricing) What They would Charge the Average Well funded Individual For rent, Is covered By the American Tax payer In the Vouchering Subsidies Programs.
So If you Really Look At it, It Becomes clear That we Can No Longer Afford Affordable Housing. In a country Where Banks and Corporations are given Billions In bail out Money and corporations Disguising Themselves as Public Housing Authorities, Continue To accept Federal subsidies For the same families That the Banks, Foreclosed On who were Once Buying these Vacant Homes All over our Countries. So I said What I did Because I believe It to Be true.
  “instead of spending billions building affordable housing lets spend billions building up people to be able to afford housing”
We have enough Vacant Homes In this Country, So To advocate The Building Of More and and Making them affordable Is simply stated Insanity why Don’t We Just spend the Billions allocated To Building More Affordable Housing.To Building Up the Lives Of The Impoverished, UnHoused (Homeless) Marginally Housed. People Struggling to Survive Too A point of Being able to afford the Homes We already Have Being Held Hostage By the Banks And Corporations Who have run this country Into The Ground.
Change Of the System Will Never Happen Until We see That The system Has truly Failed. It’s Not about People Not Having a House Or a Home There Are Empty Homes Everywhere You Look, It’s Just That Some People Can’t Afford To Have One!
So Lets Start Looking at the People aspect, So we don’t continue to Fail, Because Believe It Or Not Housing And Food Are A Basic Human Right.
*Facts and Figures In the Above Post Came from HUD.GOV and HHS.Gov and are From 2011 Reports made available From Jan 2012-March2012.
**These Housing Numbers are accurate and Current and are Often Over inflated By organizations and Individuals For effect some even Stating Homeless #’s as High as 7million at the same time praising themselves for being part of the PIT count. this Post represents accurate Numbers from that point in time count.