I just spent 20 minutes taking a survey on the issue of homelessness in the metro. It was filled with questions about many things that seemed out of place. My ability to measure how effectively the metro is combating homelessness is paramount to my ability as a man to accurately describe the pain of child birth. It seems to me that the people to ask how effective the city and adjacent county and city governments are addressing homelessness is, well, homeless people.
Even more frustrating than reading and answering a lengthy survey only available on line about homelessness is the lack of substainative solutions. The survey was mostly about how to create and assess and expand on solutions that do not directly address homelessness. In essense, the survey wanted to measure the effectiveness of measuring the potential to address homelessness. To visualize this process, imagine a circle and you are driving around this circle and you can only stop once you have reached the edge of the circles' end. There is no way to reach the edge of a circle's end. There can be no good or productive outcome to measuring the potential of addressing homelessness. There is no greater waste of time than talking about solutions to problems without acting to solve them.
There are simple and effective ways to solve homelessness in Atlanta and they can be done starting Monday morning. Here is how we solve a majority of the homeless issue and create jobs at the same time:
1. Using the old Lakewood General Motors plant near the Federal Penitentiary, the city, county and state will assist in securing funds to develop the area into a live/work/learn industrial area.
2. In this area, we will take cargo shipping containers and refurbish them into living space. We will take the old, used containers from the Savannah port, ship them to the site by train, strip them down to the metal and turn them into housing units. We will do this on an assemble line.
3. The housing units will be used on the property to house the workers who were previously homeless. They will live there, work there and learn the skills necessary to transform the cargo containers into housing units, how to assemble the units into small communities and how to maintain the units.
To ensure sustainability, we will work with FEMA and other states to provide the units as temporary shelters in the event of an emergency or to assist other states in solving their homeless problems. We will use carpet from Dalton, Georgia, home grown bamboo for counter tops and cabinetry in a joint-project with Georgia-Pacific and pioneer plastic shelving and storage uses while working with Newell-Rubbermaid.
As we continue to refine and reinvent our little project, creating, assessing and expanding to provide real solutions while taking people off the streets, providing them with a stable residence with a real address they can call their own, job training with transferable skills, a central place for medical and mental health solutions and restoring a sense of pride to them, we will have turned a negative into a positive.
It can be just that simple. If anyone is ready to start working on Monday, give me a call. I'm ready to get started. Because people without homes need more than a place to live. They need a reason to be proud, a reason to believe and an opportunity to succeed. We can make it happen.
Do some work with them and then get back to us.
Until the discussion moves away from inappropriate housing proposals and is re-directed to the PRIMARY issues of a near total absence of public mental health resources and the failure of what little is available there will be no solution. It is no coincidence that the dramatic reduction in public mental health resources across the last 40-50 years has corresponded to an equally dramatic rise in street or shelter dwelling untreated mentally ill and/or addicted individuals. The article's model is an excellent one for a concentration camp for the mentally ill. That alone makes it unacceptable.
You now have a quite large pool of untreated mentally ill (often self treating with drugs and alcohol) along with low bottom alcoholics and addicts living on the streets or transiently in shelters who have no adequate outpatient mental health resources. Yes, the Feds and State of Georgia saved quite a bit of money there. The problem is not shelter but a failure to address the reasons most are "homeless" to begin with - mental illness, alcoholism, and drug addiction and the provision of adequate public mental health resources for them, especially ongoing outpatient support.
I agree with Mr. Murphy that there are a host of issues which deserve attention when dealing with people who do not have a stable residence, mental health is but one of these issues. However, in as much as creating a starting point to address homelessness, the lack of a stable residence which one can call their own, may seem like a pipe dream Mr. Murphy, the article was never intended to address every nuance of the over-arching causes of homelessness.
I have expressed an opinion of how to provide homes for those without homes, even offered a means to train people with transferable skills while establishing a plan for sustainable growth and a role for private enterprise. Did I mention it is an eco-friendly approach? I look forward to reading your dissertation on combating mental health issues in an holistic effort to address homelessness. Your solution to these primary issues will be greatly appreciated since no one has offered a viable means to humanly retrieve our fellow members of society from the brink of mental collapse and subsequent demoralizing position of living on the streets. I look forward to altering my model to better mesh with your ideas. After all, it takes many hands to build up mankind.
And using shipping containers - whose, by the way?- would be a great way to cook someone in the GA sun. Just because you have an idea, doesn't make it a good idea. I will commend you for recognizing that there is a problem that needs solutions, but that just puts you on the same plane as the rest of us.
My idea is not new, just recycled for a new purpose, much like the containers would be. My contribution is to suggest a starting point on a path that is viable, sustainable, environmentally friendly, cost-effective, includes private enterprise and governmental cooperation toward a goal that is beneficial to both and begins to solve a problem we all recognize as an issue of importance. Rather than focusing on why something cannot be done, my suggestion provides avenues of approach to creating a lasting, long-term solution that is profitable to the companies involved, accomplishes a goal thousands of cities face everyday and appeals to people of any political party. Mr. Murphy, it is voices of dissent and concern like yours that act as the sandpaper to the model, creating a better model with fewer rough edges. In your own way, you are helping refine the idea and build a brighter future. Where others only laugh, you speak up. You are to be commended for your contribution.