Homelessness and Lack of Housing and Shelter is a Crisis

We’ve been privileged to work with different communities around the State of Oregon (Roseburg, Klamath Tribes, Redmond, and Central Oregon) as they work to address homelessness and an affordable housing crisis. We’ve had the unique opportunity to work with these communities and talk to their un-housed, community leaders, and service providers to identify where the gaps in services are and to help them create a roadmap to follow forward. 

The results are alarming. We’ve learned homelessness is growing everywhere. We’ve been on this trajectory since the 1980s. Looking back in history, we see homelessness has always been part of society. However, up until the 1980s, homelessness always improved with the improvement of the economy. For instance, during The Great Depression we saw a massive spike in homelessness, but as the economy improved, so did housing and homelessness. 

We saw policy changes across multiple facets of the federal government in the 1980s. HUD was restructured; the section 8 program was created and the federal government stepped out of housing development (building affordable housing) and left the creation of new housing to the private market. It has not worked out. Since then. for the first time in US history, housing and homelessness haven’t improved with the economy. 

Rural homelessness is also growing rapidly. From March 10-13, 2022 our team conducted a listening tour with unsheltered Redmond community members. We visited eight different locations. The locations included a Winter Warming Center, multiple rural outreach sites, a community meal site, a Turnkey Project, and another shelter site that was being remodeled.

We were astonished to see the number of people who were camped in the junipers, out of sight from the main highway. The isolation and seclusion of rural homelessness is why many people do not think homelessness exists. Urban homelessness (inside cities) is more in your face and visible. 

Homelessness, lack of shelter, and a lack of affordable housing are growing both in urban and rural communities. It is the next national crisis.  

A caring Community and Family are the most natural safety nets that normally stop our most vulnerable (seniors, disabled, mentally ill, addicted, etc) from becoming homeless. However, society is fractured and cannibalistic. There is no unity and we keep eating ourselves and grinding ourselves down to nothing. Generation after generation is passing down trauma and dysfunction. 

Alan Graham, The founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes in Austin, Texas, states a profound, catastrophic loss of family is the leading cause of homelessness. This has been echoed throughout many interviews we have done over the past couple of years. Housing and shelter alone cannot solve homelessness, but a community can.

At HSC, we have years of combined experience in building homeless community shelter continuums. We can help you build facilities and programs that will help people escape from the Well of Homelessness. 

Please reach out and let us come alongside you to help you build community and establish real solutions to homelessness.