Why Should the Government Provide Shelter for the Homeless?
by Kyle J. Cassady, CAUF Society
November 29, 2022
Do homeless people need help? This article explores the 7 top reasons for why the government should provide shelter to the homeless.
Suppose Erwin Graciano, a homeless man in Baltimore, Maryland, says that he can't get into a homeless shelter because they're all full.
From my time being homeless in my early thirties, I know how that is. I too called around local homeless shelters looking for a place to sleep. No one seemed to be able to help.
This was surprising to me because before being homeless, I assumed that if a homeless person wasn't staying in a shelter, he or she just didn't want to. I had no idea what was truly going on.
In almost every major city in the world, if homeless shelters exist, they are almost always too full to take incoming people.
I was never even offered to be put on a list. The shelters in my area told me to just keep calling back.
Meanwhile, I was being forced to leave practically anywhere I stayed. I even got ticketed for sleeping in a forest far away from civilization. Authorities told me that, no matter where it was in the city I went, it was illegal to camp. Thus, if all the homeless shelters were full, it was illegal for me to be homeless.
I was living in southern California at the time, but I did some research and found that most city governments illegalize camping but do not provide shelter.
Isn't it baffling how we let city governments get away with this?
How could it be that when a person has no other choice but to sleep outside, law enforcement has no choice but to give them a ticket?
If city governments don't allow the homeless to sleep in their jurisdiction, shouldn't it be their responsibility to provide shelter to the homeless?
Of course, the government should do that because it is the right thing to do. Unless the availability of beds offered by local non-profit organizations exists, illegalizing sleeping outside is unethical. Cities must either opt to lift anti-camping laws or provide beds for the homeless to sleep in. This to me it seems is a good moral law.
While it may be true that...
by hassling the homeless for sleeping outside more people will choose to not be homeless, and by ticketing them many of the homeless will do whatever it takes to regain housing, putting the homeless in situations in which they are forced to break the law is wrong.
After all, not many people choose to be homeless. They are forced to be homeless and thus forced to break the law. So ticketing them for sleeping outside when the city does not provide shelter is unethical.
But this just barely grazes the surface. Many other good reasons exist as well.
Here are 6 more significant reasons for why the government should provide shelter to the homeless:
6) UNSHELTEREDNESS CAUSES STRESS AND DEATH
A spray painted mural of a person experiencing extreme stress. | One reason why the government should provide shelter to the homeless is that the homeless are often stressed by illegalization of homelessness.
Imagine how it must feel to be someone who, due to a mental illness, physical disability, or an unfortunate life circumstance, is forced to sleep on the streets. Then, to make matters even worse, law enforcement hassles you, tickets you, and tells you that regardless of all the homeless shelters in your area being full, you are breaking the law by sleeping outside.
For the homeless, this can create a lot of mental distress. As you can imagine, being homeless is stressful enough.
death
Plus, in areas where temperatures get above 95° Fahrenheit, being homeless is miserable. You might even die from a heat stroke. Some homeless people do (✓1). When temperatures get below 40° Fahrenheit, you might die from hypothermia. About 700 homeless people die from hypothermia each year (✓2).
Is the government not capable of preventing some of the death and stress associated with unshelteredness? After all, they need only to devote sufficient tax money to sheltering people who are homeless to prevent these.
So when examined closely, the mental distress and threat of mortality that is caused by unshelteredness appear to be motivation enough to act.
Thus, another reason why the government should provide shelter to the homeless is that unshelteredness causes stress and death.
5) SOME CAN NOT ATTAIN SHELTER
Another reason why the government should provide shelter to the homeless is that not all homeless people are capable of attaining shelter on their own.
Many suffer from disabilities. These individuals simply cannot work. Their disabilities, be they physical or mental, prevent them from earning an income. Obviously, with no income, the disabled have no way to pay rent. Given that most homeless shelters are too full to accept new people, many disabled people sleep on the streets.
This is also true of the mentally ill. Many people with severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia are irreversibly unemployed. These individuals, even with cutting-edge psyche medication, simply just cannot work.
Thus, the government should provide shelter to the homeless because, for some, it is the only way to attain housing.
4) PEOPLE NEED SHELTER TO WORK
Another reason why the government should provide shelter to the homeless is that, for those that can and want to work, shelter is essential.
The homeless and unemployed often have difficulties attaining employment. They often lack a way to fill out job applications and look presentable for interviews. In addition, many have trouble filling out online job applications because they have no electricity. With no electricity, no way exists to charge phones or laptops which are needed to fill out applications.
Unsheltered people also have difficulties impressing employers. A job candidate is at a severe disadvantage in getting a job when he or she shows up to the job interview looking and smelling like a homeless person. With no facility to go to shower before an interview, many of the homeless just simply cannot get jobs.
the solution is to shelter
For those who are willing to work, homeless shelters solve the problem of not being able to get a job. Shelters provide electrical outlets for the homeless to charge their devices, and showers so that they can look and smell good for employers.
So in addition to preventing stress and death, and it being the only way for homeless people to regain housing, another reason why the government should provide shelter to the homeless is they need a place to live to get back to work.
3) CITIES NEED MORE SHELTERS
Of course, people wouldn't need the government to provide shelter if beds were already available for them to sleep in.
In almost every major city, non-profit organizations do offer shelter to the homeless.
The problem is, these shelters are almost always full. They usually do not receive enough funding from the government or charitable donors to bed every person who needs it.
This is where the government can help...
Being that they possess the wealth of taxes, the government is fully capable of sheltering the hopelessly homeless. If only the authorities and the people who are responsible for putting them in positions of power believed in it, homeless people would no longer need to sleep outside.
Isn't that what many government officials and citizens want anyways?
So another reason why the government should provide shelter to the homeless is the homeless need more shelter.
2) HOMELESSNESS WOULD BE LESS OF A NUISANCE
And is not the reason that many authorities and citizens want homelessness to cease is that they view homeless people as a nuisance to the community?
After all, it must be confessed, the defense for 'homeless people are never a nuisance' seems like a losing side. The homeless sometimes leave trash behind for community members to pick up, and law enforcement is routinely inconvenienced with petty calls related to loitering and illegal camping.
Providing shelter to the homeless would solve these problems.
With warm beds and showers available to every homeless person in need, fewer people would choose to be out on the streets. With fewer homeless people on the streets, homelessness would be less of a nuisance.
So additionally, the government should provide shelter to the homeless because it would eliminate a lot of headaches homelessness causes to the community.
1) UNSHELTEREDNESS IS EXPENSIVE
The final reason why the government should provide shelter to the houseless is keeping the homeless unsheltered is expensive. So much so in fact, it has been estimated by sociologists that housing the homeless is cheaper than leaving them unhoused.
The reason is that homeless people often require a vast amount of government assistance and services.
Over $30,000 a year in fact (✓3).
Mental health treatment, and emergency room visits are among the most common costs. The surprise is that these costs can be dramatically reduced. They can be reduced by merely sheltering the homeless.
If you take a look at what all those expenses are, most of them, you'll find, can be drastically reduced by offering homeless housing because most of the expenses are directly related to the situation of houselessness.
The takeaway from this? It is actually cheaper to house the homeless than to leave them unsheltered.
FINAL THOUGHTS
It might be said, though, that the government should not provide shelter to the homeless.
If we do begin handing out free shelter to anyone who wants it, more people will choose to be homeless. Since homelessness is a problem because creates a situation in which a person needs to work little if even at all, providing shelter to the homeless would be a mistake. Doing so would be bad for the economy.
While it probably is true that more people would choose to not pay rent if free rent was offered as an alternative, it is probably false for the most part to assume that people would rather live in a homeless shelter than work to live in their apartment or a house.
Homeless shelters are often undesirable for many reasons, reasons which I discuss in "Why Do the Homeless Refuse Help?"
Plus, it's also important to note that most people do not become homeless by choice. The people who live in homeless shelters most often do not because they believe that living in one is their best option. Many of them suffer from a mental illness or disability or are victims of unexpected life circumstances. Much research supports this.
So it is not like if homeless shelters were available to anyone, the housing market no longer is needed. Most people are willing if they are capable to work to put in the hours to not have to live at a homeless shelter.
summary
The government should provide shelter to the homeless for many reasons.
First, it is the right thing to do. Many cities have laws against citizens sleeping outside, yet offer no emergency housing to people when homeless shelters are full
Next, doing so would prevent stress and death. Because in most cities camping outside is illegal, the homeless are often stressed about getting caught for it. From being homeless, some even die from heat stroke and hypothermia. Offering a person a place to sleep could eliminate some of this stress and death.
Providing shelter to the homeless would also be virtuous if not dutiful. Many of the homeless suffer from physical or mental disabilities and can simply not attain shelter on their own.
Plus, homeless people need shelter to regain housing. Without electricity to charge electronics, and showers to look and smell good for an interview, it can be near impossible for the homeless to get jobs.
And most homeless shelters lack vacancies. Homeless people can just check themselves into one without finding out their full.
Next, the government should provide shelter because it's what many government officials and citizens want. Most people view homelessness as a nuisance and all it would take to eliminate most of it is to offer the homeless more beds.
Finally, homelessness is expensive. It has been estimated by experts to be cheaper to house them than to let them remain unsheltered.
conclusion
Thus, federal governments must require that city governments provide enough beds to accommodate the homeless population. City governments, in an attempt to comply with federal regulations, will then take responsibility for the lack of availability of homeless shelters in their jurisdiction.
At the very minimum, city governments should provide a place for the homeless to remain outdoors. Perhaps an open field or a parking lot where the homeless can pitch tents.
One quick and cheap way to do this may be to set up military-style tents in city-owned parking lots anytime the temperature gets below 40° and above 95° Fahrenheit.
Cities should then train police officers to offer guidance about where the homeless can legally sleep. The current, cold, "you can't stay here and I have nowhere to tell you to go to if all the homeless shelters in the community are full" practice is unethical and thus should be eradicated.
Then, just then, might less homeless people die from heat stroke and hypothermia.
further reading
This article focused exclusively on why the government should provide shelter to the homeless. What it focused little to none on, however, is how to help the homeless...
