What does the lack of affordable housing have to do with Homelessness?

Gentrification. I'm one of those guys who love to see old areas of the city revitalize - especially abandoned areas where commerce is once again thriving and people are returning to live and raise their families. Bringing a community back to life establishes fair market housing and that attracts other people and businesses to the area, which leads to more revitalization and so on it goes.

Of course without a carefully thought out development plan, there's a down side to gentrifying an area - lack of affordable housing. The ugly side of bringing "life" back to an area, is that little or no thought is given to the life (people) already living in that area. Again without a careful plan that benefits all people, for every block that is revitalized affordable housing gets pushed out or down to the next block until it vanishes completely.

Many of the women and men, especially the men, who come to our facilities for shelter or transitional living are caught in what we refer to as the "Housing Sandwich." With more than 8,000 men and women coming from our correction facilities into Lucas County each year, many of them do not have a home to return to. Incarceration isn't the only contributor to the housing sandwich. If a person who has been without a home for an extended period of time, gets back of their feet, they to will be unable to move from our care to their own home. So for many, the sad reality is, lack of affordable housing brings them to us and lack of affordable housing keeps them with us - that's how the lack of affordable housing contributes to the homelessness of our fellow citizens.

Here's today's question; "What happens when we merge a ready labor force (homeless men and women), with all the abandoned houses in our city (between 400-500 conservatively) and education in the building trades (plumbing, electrical construction)?

The return of affordable housing! Simple, yet complex - what do you think?

Dan Rogers