Homeless Entrepreneur on Housing Policy

Policy Goals

            Housing policy reform is a central component in the fight to end homelessness throughout the world. One of the leading causes of homelessness is a lack of affordable housing for low-income individuals¹. With this in mind Homeless Entrepreneur promotes a series of housing policy measures aimed at preventing homelessness and empowering people within the G7 and the EU to improve their living situation. While some member nations are farther ahead than others when it comes to housing policy, this article is designed to lay out some basic policy goals that all members should strive to meet. These policies include actions designed to: (1) prevent eviction, (2) ensure availability of affordable housing, and (3) assist in the creation of assets for those affected by poverty. By targeting social policy in these areas, we can help provide a wealth of opportunities for individuals to reduce homelessness and find greater financial stability in the future.

(1) Eviction Prevention

          A lack of eviction protection policy can be a fast-track to homelessness. It is essential that we implement a series of reforms to protect those most vulnerable to losing their homes and being forced into insecure housing situations. These reforms should begin with expanding eviction protections for low income individuals and those renting without a formal agreement. In many instances people living in poverty cannot afford the upfront costs of a down payment or security deposit necessary to enter into a formal renting agreement with landlords. As a result, they end up renting through informal month to month payments. Since they are more likely to have no formal lease or renting agreement, people in poverty are often disproportionately subjected to abusive housing practices such as eviction without notice and sudden rent increases. Without a formal lease they are forced to either agree to their landlords demands or be forced out onto the street with no legal recourse. While it is always important for everyone to have secure access to housing, it is even more urgent given the current pandemic. Losing housing could be a death sentence for those who are evicted and forced to live on the street without a place to socially isolate.

However, policymakers can assist in preventing these types of problems in several ways. One way in which they may address these abuses is by extending legal protections to those renting without a formal agreement by making them similar to those renting with one. This would require legislation emphasizing the fact that verbal non-written agreements still provide tenants with protections against abusive housing practices. However, it is possible that expanding protections to informal agreements in this way could prove difficult due to the vague nature of their terms. As such policymakers should also consider making funds available to assist potential tenants in making the down payments or security deposits necessary to enter into a formal lease agreement with their landlord. These funds would in turn be met by obligations on the individual that they care for the property they have been assisted in leasing. By doing so policymakers would provide tenants with the protections of formal agreements without having to adjust existing contract law. Finally, cities should seek to limit no-fault evictions. No-fault evictions are a tool used by landlords to evict tenants without reasonable cause. This practice often results in landlords leveraging tenants into either paying ever higher rent or being forced out of their home when their lease expires. Ending no-fault eviction helps to protect the housing market from becoming even more expensive going into the future.

          While ensuring that everyone has access to the eviction protections allotted to formal renting agreements is important, it is by no means adequate for the prevention of eviction and the homelessness that so often follows. We must also make resources available to those who have formal renting agreements or mortgage agreements but are still in danger of being evicted because of low income. Unexpected medical expenses, family emergencies, or loss of employment can all cause people to suddenly find their financial situation destabilized and make the threat of eviction or foreclosure imminent. Often these situations require immediate intervention to provide short-term economic assistance. As such, crisis intervention funds and low or no interest emergency loans should be made available to those facing potential eviction. An emergency intervention can act as a small individual economic stimulus to provide short-term support. Given the billions of euros that the EU is currently devoting to provide emergency bailouts to corporations it only makes sense that we provide that same assistance on a smaller scale to everyday citizens. The investment in these programs can be thought of as insurance in preventing further expenses in the future. In the United States providing assistance to the chronically homeless through social programs costs an average of $35,578 USD per year². Through the allocation of emergency intervention funds, communities can avoid the costs associated with people relying on social programs after having been evicted. Implementing these changes could have a real positive effect on the stability of the lives of millions.

(2) Creating Affordable Housing

          When it comes to preventing homelessness, one of the areas that social policy can have the largest impact is by ensuring the creation of affordable housing. Although it varies by nation, affordable housing is typically defined as being housing that costs up to 30% of an individual’s income. Since 2007 rent in the EU has increased by an average of 21% while the price of houses has increased by 19% ³. However, some member states like Austria saw house prices go up by as much as 85%. Programs like Homeless Entrepreneur’s Homeless Hostels Work Program, which converts underused tourism infrastructure into temporary housing, help to assist those who cannot afford housing on a short-term basis. However, as the global population continues to increase it is essential that now more than ever we take measures to address the issue of long-term housing affordability. The simple fact is that if people cannot afford adequate housing, our rates of homelessness will only increase going forward into the future. To create a bulwark against this trend we must implement policies that stimulate the construction of affordable housing and that do so in a manner that promotes opportunities for a greater portion of the population. The ramifications of this reality should branch across a broad range of topics beginning with zoning and housing construction. Policy changes in these areas should strive to meet two primary goals: The creation of an adequate number of affordable housing units and ensuring that these units are available in high opportunity areas.

Constructing new affordable housing units is an intuitive first step in expanding the availability of affordable housing. To ensure that developers prioritize the creation, policy makers should incentivize that a portion of all newly constructed housing complexes consist of affordable units. This can be done through the creation of affordable housing grants or through tax breaks for affordable housing development. Programs like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit in the United States have provided developers with an average of 4-9% tax break in return for an agreement that a percentage of the units constructed will fall within affordable rent guidelines⁴. While creating more affordable housing units is essential, we must also do so in a manner that addresses the underlying problem of those who require low income housing.

If they are to meet their goal of helping to support low income families, then affordable housing should be constructed in areas of high socioeconomic opportunity. In the past when developers have created new affordable housing units they have consistently done so in impoverished areas of low economic opportunity. As a result, those who wish to live in the newly available affordable housing are unable to find the employment or education resources necessary to improve their living situation. To combat this practice, cities can implement Inclusive Zoning Ordinances in areas of high economic opportunity. Inclusive Zoning requires that a percentage of housing units in a given area are affordable to those making less than the average median income for the city. This would allow low income individuals to move into areas of higher economic opportunity where jobs are more readily available and expand their possibilities for financial success. If used in combination with subsidies to ensure access to education, these ordinances can vastly improve social mobility. By coupling the practices of incentivizing real estate developers and implementing Inclusive Zoning cities policymakers can expand economic mobility while also providing a greater amount of affordable housing.

            Beyond the construction of new housing, it is important that communities take steps to make existing housing affordable for a larger portion of the population. The most direct way to improve housing affordability is by supporting and expanding housing assistance programs. Housing voucher programs play an important role in preventing homelessness and supporting economic mobility. Households who qualify for housing assistance are typically spending as much as 30 - 40% of their monthly income on housing expenses. In 2014 24.7% of households in Spain spent more than 40% of their income on housing⁵. Housing vouchers allow renters to spend a greater percentage of their income on essentials such as food, clothing, and medicine instead of housing expenses for each month.

Data: US Bureau of Labor Statistics

This means that unexpected expenses have a reduced chance of making someone choose between buying essentials and being forced into homelessness. Just as importantly, housing vouchers broaden the housing options available to renters. This is important because housing mobility plays an essential role in creating economic mobility. When people are not prevented from moving because of prohibitively high rent, they can take advantage of living in high opportunity neighborhoods where their socioeconomic situation can improve. In this way housing vouchers can help those who qualify become more economically independent in the long run.

(3) Accumulating Equity

            At Homeless Entrepreneur we believe in assisting and empowering homeless people to improve their situation and take ownership of their present future. Consequently, we advocate for programs that help create assets for homeless individuals and that personally invest them in building successful communities. One way in which communities have helped to build assets for low income individuals is by supporting investment in Limited Equity Cooperatives (LEC).  Limited Equity Cooperatives can not only provide affordable housing but also build assets for residents and invest them in the well-being of their communities. These programs have shown great success in US cities such as Washington DC and Boston. Rather than paying rent like a traditional housing complex, residents of LECs pay to buy shares in the cooperative that in turn provides them with the right to stay there as well. The difference in these systems being that LECs provide residents with partial ownership in the property that grows over time as more payments are made. This means that those living in LECs are not just making rent payments, they are making real estate investments that accumulate value over time and can pay out in the future. Affording residents partial ownership also gives them a stake in maintaining the property and managing decisions regarding how it should be run. LECs grant people an opportunity to become active working participants in their community while also providing affordable housing and generating financial assets. For these reasons communities should take steps to invest in LECs projects. This could come in the form of offering low or no interest loans to create LECs, creating tax breaks for their development, or providing support to the NGOs that are working to develop LECs within communities. Giving low income individuals the tools to build their assets through active participation in their community is a great way to prevent future homelessness.

How to Help

            The best way you can help to bring about housing policy reform is by showing your government representatives that you support these proposals. While the policies mentioned above are all steps in the right direction, they will not be successful without the active participation of local and national leadership. As Tom Baker, a professor of Human Geography at Auckland University puts it, “Decades of inclusive zoning and developer subsidies have not delivered a great deal of 'properly' affordable housing, both in relative and absolute terms. It is increasingly clear that improvements to affordability cannot be achieved without substantial state involvement in the housing sector”.

            If you are interested in learning more about how you can help, consider lending support to non-profits like Homeless Entrepreneur who seek to advocate on behalf of homeless and low-income individuals. In addition to the Homeless Hostels Work Program mentioned above, Homeless Entrepreneur also operates:

The HELP Program:

The HELP Program works by matching individual participants with nine managers in the key areas of: professional development, education, health, housing, finance, legal assistance, communication, sales, and a mentor. This creates a support structure of individuals all working together to help participants achieve housing and financial independence within twelve months.

https://www.homelessentrepreneur.org/en/help-program

Homeless Voices:

Homeless Voices provides insight into the lives of homeless individuals to connect them with their community along with housing and employment opportunities, so they can grow their income and build their assets. People are given the opportunity to tell their story and expose the ways in which our current system is failing to meet the needs of many.

https://www.homelessentrepreneur.org/en/he-voices

Homeless Helpline:

The Homeless Helpline collects real-time data from and about homeless people or those about to become homeless and connects them to available resources. By acting as an information hub Homeless Helpline aims to prevent and reduce homelessnes.

https://www.homelessentrepreneur.org/en/he-helpline

Noah Thompson,

Homeless Entrepreneur | Policy and Fundraising

noah@homelessentrepreneur.org

References:

¹ U.S. States Conference of Mayors, Hunger and Homelessness Survey: A STATUS ON HUNGER AND HOMELESS IN AMERICA’S CITIES – A 25-CITY SURVEY 2 (Dec. 2014)

² http://endhomelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Cost-Savings-from-PSH.pdf

³ European commission, Eurostat. Housing Price Statistics.

⁴ Congressional Research Service, An Introduction to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (Feb. 2017)

⁵ OECD Affordable Housing Database – HM1.3 Housing tenures and HC1.2 Housing costs over income

#mobilitymovesminds

More than ever travelling and mobility are parts of our lives. A luxury life being possible because of the freedom of choosing where to go, when to and how to move. From cultural interests, business trips, products that reach us directly on our dining table to a weeklong art experience, we expect an experience, a will-do inspiring offering that is affordable, enjoyable, on-time and exciting. We expect a destination experience offered by the ecosystems around the world with an all-inclusive community-opens-up-its-assets-for-us attitude. We look here into physical mobility as first element of the resilience triangle.

A pandemic incident, like any other disastrous event abruptly ends our freedom of choosing. It rips off our safety shield. No one would have thought what it meant to be caught in a bubble of inactivity like what we experience throughout the Corona crisis. We never could have imagined what we will be missing. Zero safety shields turn the light on our vulnerability. They move us into the shadows. Into the shadows of streets, building corners, solitude, and nearly zero communication. Mental mobility is reduced to a minimum with least experience, positive momentums and brick walls become literally our mental walls. Mental mobility is the second element of regaining resilience.

We ask us what we might be missing if we did not have the means to afford mobility. We ask ourselves what it takes to turn back mobility into a substantial asset and public good for everyone – during and post the pandemic. Many words are spoken by governmental and economic stakeholders. First attempts are made to revitalize businesses through financial aid and funding programs. Second attempts looking into the digital world of mobility are hardly made. We find individual mobility moves throughout video call and conferences. Cargo wise we miss the element of digital supply chains and modular production and supply. Digital mobility complements physical and mental mobility as third element of the triangle.

Leveraging physical, mental, and digital mobility, any ecosystem being large city, municipality, or community is being confronted with the transformation of turning elements into assets, and assets into offerings. More than ever, is resilience re-build a cross-sectoral, public, private, and shared effort.

We live in dynamic times where information and digital technologies are rapidly changing the way we do day to day tasks and activities. The basis and backbone of the change is the evolution of technology from physical to digital.

How will ecosystems climb back the ladder to reach back their resilience equilibrium? Travel, transport, communication, migration have always been integral part of people’s lives, and we are grouping all these aspects under the definition of an affordable and consumable mobility, regardless of budget, handicap, age, and geography. Industry, innovation, and technology are all changing, and also evolving inter-dependently. This is all happening under the umbrella of our structural ecosystems, the villages and cities, the communities and municipalities. But they are at risk. Take the tourism sector: the drama is not a tourist industry restricted drama due to the lockdown and pandemic impact cycles! The drama started already putting entire villages and regions at the border of existence. What does it take to turn these ecosystems into self-sustaining ecosystems with their own contextual safety shields?

Self-sustaining ecosystems will demonstrate re-invention and the new normal of innovation, which concludes in a novel manner how constituents, visitors, guests, and natural resources interact more meaningful and heads up. Our understanding of mobility means, intermodal, smart and sustainable mobility will expand massively way beyond the physical hybrid car, the self-driving autonomous people mover, the industrial cycle of reproduction and circular supply chain.

We are facing in our communities an increasing number of homelessness due to several reasons. In our daily rush we overlook those that are stuck. The longer it takes to get back into the working and moving society, the harder it gets to break the boundaries and morph limits into chances. With respect to health and social infrastructure – we are created to move and spend energy. Hunting for food is still a “habit” for homeless people and the ones lose their home due to private debt and businesses running out of customers onsite. Now we are experiencing de-mobility – food comes to us with a phone call or a mouse click. Instead of healthy moves, we wait to be served. What is the use of technology anyhow? Are we really turning solutions and cloud services up to the point of rebuilding resilience? How will cities reshape their resilience streams – digitally, physically and mentally?

We hereby dedicate an initiative called #mobilitymovesminds short #mmm to the efforts of rebuilding resilience on personal and organizational level. We will be leveraging the human voices of the street, analyzing ecosystems and the systems of collaborative social responsibility, resilience design and execution. Furthermore we focus on identifying resilience patterns that can be leveraged by any community being big or small, by any stakeholder being private or public sector, to ultimately end corner-stone living on the streets and end poverty.

Our #mobilitymovesminds initiative results covers in a printable and digital book and website format covering the following:

• Voices of the street, governmental and private institutions

• Research on mobility and further elements of employed and unemployed individuals

• Analysis of mobility involved patterns that stimulate people to move on, investigating the role of mobility and its influence, roadblock and effort

• Requirements analysis to designing new businesses in collaboration with homeless people

• Designing a social business framework

• Publishing and disseminating the results including field runs and social business model framework in print and podcast formats

We ask for your support to make the #mobilitymovesminds happening and giving back a resilience patterned framework to the suffering ecosystems of the globe.

We are estimating a 15.000 € effort to write, design, publish and make mobility moves minds come true. Barbara will be herein opening work opportunities for homeless peers of #HomelessEntrepreneur. Furthermore, throughout the process of #mobilitymovesminds Barbara will be launching this resilience framework to steer the process of rebuilding resilience in communities. This results in publication formats book, podcast, and transcripts. The costs we need to cover the core part of our efforts are €15.000.

With your donation starting of €50 your personal story will be covered. Barbara will interview you and let you speak up.

With your donation starting of €420 you and your local ecosystem, being city or village, will be included in our analysis, finding entry in social business framework and ultimately being covered among a total of 20 ecosystem stories in the book.

Turn the light on for you and your community, being a village or city.

You have further questions? Or like to support now, here we are

Barbara

barbara.fluegge@dvcconsult.com +41 (0) 79 820 2473

"Cities Need Universal Basic Mobility, Medical Tourism and Equality"

In Switzerland with my f permit, I am limited in many opportunities like access to study or work, right to travel.

“People need easy access to work and to essential services to live decent, independent lives. Cities need Universal Basic Mobility. It’s a human right. ”

— Jeff Makana, #HomelessEntrepreneur correspondent in Switzerland

Freedom of movement, mobility rights, or the right to travel is a human rights concept encompassing the right of individuals to travel from place to place within the territory of a country, and to leave the country and return to it.

This makes me feel like a homeless person because it limits me from trying, for instance, to build a small business. Out of this desperation I have, as an independent publisher, looked at various social exclusion themes, like invisibility of immigrants or homelessness in the bigger cities in Switzerland to do digital storytelling.

Jeff doing therapeutic photography in Basel in 2020

However, as a f permit holder, I have a studio apartment. I get assistance with rent for a studio apartment and medical insurance. I also get social assistance which equals to 10 chf a day, however, these are poverty margins. That being said, I am appreciative, but think economic empowerment is what most people desire.

So under these circumstances, it's impossible to get a business idea off the ground. Please note that I found out some years back that in Switzerland anyone residing here can start a sole proprietorship and don't have a tax obligation till s/he hits 100k (chf) in profits. And if I had business generating this kind of revenues then I can have an opportunity apply for a residence permit. I do also immensely appreciate Switzerland’s humanitarian gesture, which provides this social assistance support to us which is not typical for homeless folks.

I have an entrepreneurial spirit and have started a successful sole proprietorship in Minnesota doing abstract and title searches for banks and title insurance companies.

With my spirit in creativity while working as a medical coordinator, I built a very good relationship with hospitals and doctors, and using my experience from the US, I decided to research the medical tourism industry and saw a good niche with good disruption potential.

But how do you get a business of the ground with 400 (chf) a month? It seems like an uphill task because of limited cash flow.

In the USA, jobs are easier to find and this helps in generating income to support a small side-business that you eventually allows you to transition from working a side job to being independent.

According to established studies, the medical tourism industry is growing, "With more than 37 million health-related trips and the generation of more than €33 billion each year, medical tourism has become an important niche market."

"Currently, the number of self-paying patients from abroad who travel to Switzerland to seek health care is estimated to be around 0.5-5% of all patients being treated by the Swiss healthcare system. Though this number is small, these patients are considered valuable from financial point of view. They also contribute to education and training of health care professionals and help build reputation of Switzerland as a destination for excellence in health care."

"The unique qualities of Swiss health services that attract patients from abroad are technologically advanced medical infrastructure, highly trained health care professionals, belief in ‘Swiss quality and precision’, strong commitment to protect the privacy of patients while caring for their health needs in a holistic and ‘exclusive’ manner and stable socio-political environment. The main challenge to attract patients from abroad is the high cost of health care in Switzerland as compared to neighboring countries even though many argue that Switzerland provides better quality to price ratio."

Jeff in a human rights summit in 2010.

People with psycho-social disabilities and homeless face similarities in social economic injustices and often revolve around bureaucracies in social services.

Around the world, governments are pressing pause on disabled and homeless peoples’ ability to make the most basic of decisions, through a scheme called “conservatorship.”

Conservatorship, also known as “guardianship,” puts decision-making for “conserved” people in the hands of strangers who are assigned to them by the courts, or sometimes in the hands of relatives with whom they may or may not have good relationships. The process takes away their self-determination and often leaves them locked up in jail-like facilities, allegedly for their own protection."

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (1948)

Article 25.1 states that: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

Jeff in a UN shadow reporting workshop in 2010

CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES (2008)

Article 2 gives the following definition: “"Reasonable accommodation" means necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Article 5.3 states that “in order to promote equality and eliminate discrimination, States Parties shall take all appropriate steps to ensure that reasonable accommodation is provided.”

Article 9.1 (a) states that “to enable persons with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life, States Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, (…). These measures, which shall include the identification and elimination of obstacles and barriers to accessibility, shall apply to, inter alia: … (a) Buildings, roads, transportation and other indoor and outdoor facilities, including schools, housing, medical facilities and workplaces.”

Article 19 (a) states that “States Parties to this Convention recognize the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community, including by ensuring that: (a) Persons with disabilities have the opportunity to choose their place of residence and where and with whom they live on an equal basis with others and are not obliged to live in a particular living arrangement.”

Article 22.1 states that “No person with disabilities, regardless of place of residence or living arrangements, shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, or correspondence or other types of communication or to unlawful attacks on his or her honor and reputation. Persons with disabilities have the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”

Article 24 – Education  5. States Parties shall ensure that persons with disabilities are able to access general tertiary education, vocational training, adult education and lifelong learning without discrimination and on an equal basis with others. To this end, States Parties shall ensure that reasonable accommodation is provided to persons with disabilities.

Article 28.1 states that “States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right without discrimination on the basis of disability.”

Article 28.2 (d) states that “States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to social protection and to the enjoyment of that right without discrimination on the basis of disability, and shall take appropriate steps to safeguard and promote the realization of this right, including measures:… (d) To ensure access by persons with disabilities to public housing programs.”

Human rights apply to everyone, no matter our race, belief, location or other distinction. They are universal, eternal & indivisible. One cannot pick & choose among civil, political, economic, social & cultural rights.

Let's stand up for human rights for everyone, everywhere.

Join Our #HomelessEntrepreneur Community

A special thanks to Jeff Makana, an #HE corresponent in Switzerland, for writing and contributing this article to our blog!