This is the first in a series of blog posts that explores the nexus between technology and homelessness, attempts to create awareness, and drives a quest for innovation that can create capacity in social sector organizations to do more good.
What is homelessness?
That great fount of knowledge, Wikipedia defines homelessness as living in housing that is below the minimum standard or lacks secure tenure. This broad definition varies by country and culture but is almost universally acknowledged as one of the most pernicious of human conditions in modern times.
The number one cause of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing. A recent study found less than 5.8 million rental units affordable to the more than 10 million households in the United States that identify as extremely low income. After paying rent and utilities, 75% of those households end up with less than half of their income to pay for necessities such as food, medicine, transportation, or childcare. Many of these households face additional financial and societal pressures around race, substance addiction, and quality education leading to members falling prey to mental illness and physical and sexual abuse. These pressures are further exacerbated by sweeping health and economic disruptions such as the current Covid-19 pandemic. While numbers are yet to roll in, initial indications suggest that macro long term impacts will include a worsening of the global homelessness situation.
Types of homelessness
There are three types of homelessness as described in this scholarly paper from the University of Pennsylvania.
- Chronic Homelessness
These individuals are likely to be de-facto long term residents in the shelter system and are the most stereotyped in public media. They are likely to be older and with a history of unemployment, often suffering from disabilities and substance abuse. Sustainable tenured housing is a struggle for these individuals as the shelter system is geared toward emergency housing needs rather than as long term domiciles. Such persons represent a far smaller proportion of the population compared to the transitionally homeless.
- Transitional Homelessness
Transitionally homeless individuals generally enter the shelter system for only one stay and a short period. Such persons tend to be younger, are probably recent members of the precariously housed population, and have become homeless because of some catastrophic event. This forces them to spend a short time in a homeless shelter before making a transition into more stable housing. Over time, transitionally homeless individuals account for the majority of persons experiencing homelessness given their higher rate of turnover.
- Episodic Homelessness
Those individuals who frequently shuttle in and out of homelessness are known as episodically homeless. They are most likely to be young, but unlike those in transitional homelessness, episodically homeless individuals often are chronically unemployed and experience medical, mental health, and substance abuse problems. In particular, this demographic is particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases such as Covid-19.
The role of institutions
A variety of Institutions play vital roles in ending homelessness by funding, creating, and managing capabilities to ameliorate the living conditions of the homeless.
- HUD
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is the Federal agency responsible for national policy and programs that address America’s housing needs, that improve and develop the Nation’s communities and enforce fair housing laws. HUD’s business is helping create a decent home and suitable living environment for all Americans. HUD plays a major role in supporting homeownership by underwriting homeownership for lower and moderate-income families through its mortgage insurance programs. Its other functions include providing rental assistance, public or subsidized housing for low-income families, and homeless assistance through nonprofit organizations.
- Continuum of Care
A Continuum of Care is a regional or local planning body that coordinates housing and services funding for homeless families and individuals, including outreach, intake and assessment, emergency shelter, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing. Somewhat confusingly, there is also a Continuum of Care program that originates from the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Agency. Local CoC bodies liaise with the federal CoC program to provide access to CoC grant funds. The process is designed to promote community-wide commitment to the goal of ending homelessness, provide funding for efforts by nonprofit providers, and State and local governments to quickly rehouse homeless individuals and families while minimizing the trauma and dislocation caused to homeless individuals.
Portland/Multnomah County Continuums of Care bodies include the following –
- Foundations
A foundation is a nonprofit corporation or a charitable trust that makes grants to organizations, institutions, or individuals for charitable purposes such as science, culture, and religion including social causes such as education and homelessness. A good example is the Melville Trust that has granted over $145 million over the past 20 years to organizations dedicated to ending homelessness. Foundations could be public charities or private foundations that derive their assets from a single individual, organization, or legal entity.
- Nonprofits
Nonprofit organizations most commonly refer to organizations that are approved as tax-exempt under the IRS tax code 501c(3). A 501(c)(3) is a charitable organization that is involved in activities of a religious, charitable, literary, educational, or public benefit nature. FuseChange is a registered 501(c)(3) organization with the express goal of accelerating social and environmental change in a community-oriented and collaborative manner. We believe that the FuseChange platform will become a catalyst for innovation by fostering the discovery and sharing of homelessness solutions.
The role of technology
We at FuseChange believe that technological innovation is not a panacea to social ailments, but rather a neutral tool that can propagate positive or negative outcomes depending on the circumstances in which technology is developed. When applied critically to certain social problems, technology can help to facilitate significant, positive social change. We believe that technology does not have intrinsic value; its value lies in its application. While traditional economic structures prioritize the development and use of technologies that generate profits rather than those that can create impact, FuseChange is living proof that the contrary is not only possible but economically feasible.
Collaboration is the keystone of our model for social advancement via technological innovation. That coupled with the confluence of cheap utility-based computing, consumer-oriented intelligent data processing models as well as a growing corporate social conscience in Big Tech contribute to a democratic virtuous cycle of giving and receiving.
The key tenets of our vision of technology for social good include –
- Commoditizing and crowdsourcing the gathering of data and solutions at the micro and macro level
- Building a collaboration platform that fosters the collection and curation of solutions for social issues such as homelessness
- Building cheap and reusable data processing pipelines
- Democratizing access to insights afforded by the data
- Prioritizing automation of repetitive tasks and refocusing human bandwidth on mission-critical goals
- Leveraging cloud-based technology to dramatically drive down the cost of nonprofit operations
- Empowering fellow nonprofits and foundations to leverage technology to do more with less
We hope that our readers will support us and join the FuseChange family to banish homelessness. Stay tuned for future posts on IT Strategy for nonprofits, CRM and donor management, AI for social good, and much more.
By Danny Tekumalla
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-tekumalla
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