Letter to the Editor: A solution to the homeless crisis

Dear Editor:

Recently I wrote a Letter to the Editor suggesting our elected officials needed to spend time considering applying “common sense” to a number of our growing social issues such as homelessness and others.

Subsequent to the above publication, I’ve been challenged by local associates that if I have a common sense solution to homelessness, to lay it out so those in power can consider the proposal.

The following is a focused proposal to begin “looking after” our fellow human beings.

May we at least consider the following: Good intentions by our politicians to provide adequate housing, by itself, is a waste of time, money and other resources which brings me to the following general outline.

The first step is to legally get the homeless off of the streets by insisting our federal, state and local health departments recognize the very serious health issues homelessness creates and to get busy writing the codes necessary to remove the homeless from the onerous and potentially deadly condition of street and vehicle living. Homeless encampments and individual overnight camping (on public and/or private lands) should be an illegal health act by those who are otherwise homeless and indigent, not to punish them but to get them the help they so desperately need, recognized or not.

Second, we need to recognize there are non profit organizations specifically chartered to deal with the homeless issues who need funding and training, among other reasons, to help code enforcement officials -- not the police -- keep the streets free of communicable diseases and illegal encampments. Specifically, non profit social workers need training to work with code enforcement professionals to relocate the homeless into facilities that are designed and managed to “transition” the homeless into a position to re enter our modern society and remain free of the encouragements of street living.

In order to solve homelessness, the fundamental causes must be eliminated. Some of those causes are lack of funds, alcohol or drug addiction, mental or physical issues, waywardness and others. These issues need to be treated and managed by professionals trained to help solve them. Local, state of federal governments aren’t in a position to provide long-term solutions but there are organizations, mostly non profits who are. Let’s give them the needed resources to help solve the issue!

Common sense is not a synonym for simple. There is nothing simple about the above common sense solution. However, the solution is doable with the desire to accomplish it.

As stated above, this is a general outline that needs serious input from the professionals at our health departments who need to be more assertive about coding these very serious health issues which is the foundation to resolving the homeless issue in my opinion

As to the cost issue, back in 1961 when President Kennedy directed the nation to send astronauts to the moon and back, that cost was reported to Congress as $25.4 billion tax dollars in 1974 (in today’s dollars would be about $160 billion). By comparison, in 2017, the last year of documented data, “We the People of these United States donated more than $419 billion to US charities.”

I suggest that if about 10% of those donations went to curing the homeless issues for every year for about five years, we could solve this most onerous issue without reaching into our tax base with the exception of some seed capital to launch this national project.

It’s abundantly clear that millions of our fellow Americans need our help now before this issue blossoms into a further complicated epidemic for all of us.

We can start today by showing support to a local Downey non profit looking to begin the above here in our well respected city by providing donated funds to Homeless & Senior Hero’s, Inc., a 501C3 not for profit, to help push a common sense approach to solving this problem. Donations can be sent to Homeless & Senior Hero’s, Inc., in care of Downey Federal Credit Union. If you want to be anonymous, please indicate that request on your check. Questions and comments can be forwarded to (714) 342-8769. Thank you for your kind considerations.

Dennis Billings
President and CEO
Homeless & Senior Hero’s, Inc.