Everyone deserves

a place to feel safe

We have seen throughout the
community recently, how homelessness
has increased. Our community has felt
less safe and these people deserve to
have a place to stay that isn’t on the
streets of our neighborhoods. There
needs to be a change. We deserve it
and so do they.

NOVEMBER 2023 GRACE PENDLETON

 The term homelessness first came
from people traversing the U.S in
search for work. Wars and
revolutions throughout the years
have changed homelessness. After
the Civil war, homelessness became
a national issue in 1870.
Background information
Homelessness has changed
over time and with that comes
poverty. Homelessness and
poverty have been a struggle to
recover from for many years.
Year to year, homelessness and
poverty fluctuates. There needs
to be a permanent change.
 Homelessness and the criminal justice
system are deeply intertwined.
Homeless people living outside can be
charged for low-level offenses from
sleeping in parks and loitering while
people that have previous experience in
the criminal justice system can be turned
down for housing opportunities as well
as job opportunities resulting in
homelessness.

Realizing that both of these coincide with each

other will help us to build stronger safe
communities, reform the jail system, and
reduce homelessness.
 Statistics show that between shelters, ER’s , and
Statistics jails, it costs $40,000 a year for a homeless person to
be on the streets. Those numbers are very high.
Instead of just sitting back and watching the numbers
increase each year, we need to find an affective way
to get these people off the streets.

These statistics show the differences between types

of people encountering homelessness with the
amounts of people that are experiencing it. At the
bottom is a pie chart that is representing the
comparison between sheltered and unsheltered
homeless people from the years of 2007-2022.

Our goal is to increase the amount of shelter that

we can to get our people and communities safe.
This graph shows total number of
homelessness in the U.S varying in different
Outcomes of sheltering
all people
Providing shelter towards everybody provides
security, personal safety and protection from the
weather, preventing health problems and diseases

We will improve the health of our community

members, we improve the fiscal well-being of our
healthcare systems, and we improve the quality of life
for everyone in our community.
 How we should go about ending
homelessness in this community
“Since modern homelessness began more
than thirty years ago, research and
experience have overwhelmingly shown
that investments in permanent housing
are extraordinarily effective in reducing
homelessness — as well as being cost-
“Housing First is considered a best
effective.” practice for addressing homelessness,
but where one city succeeded, another
still struggles. A surge in pandemic
homeless aid will help, but experts say
only with strategic planning (Jensen).”
 We need your help!
While there is much to discuss about our options of
housing these people, to result in a cleaner and safer
community, Housing First is a great option.

Housing First’s job is it protect the community and the

homeless. Their goal is to protect and keep everybody
safe. This is a chance for the homeless to get back on
their feet slowly and effectively.
Housing First:
Here are the five key principles of the goals of Housing First.
 Conclusion
Federal housing, permanent supportive
housing, and “Housing First” solutions are
deemed affective ways to keep the community
safe. We need to implement the Housing First
solution, so that everybody can have a fresh
start. We all need to work together to better
our community and this is the way to do it.
My sources
Five charts that explain the homelessness-jail cycle-and how to break it. Urban Institute. (2020, September 16).
https://www.urban.org/features/five-charts-explain-homelessness-jail-cycle-and-how-break-it

Flynn, C. (2022, October 18). The criminal justice system and its effect on homelessness. The HomeMore Project.
https://thehomemoreproject.org/blog/the-criminal-justice-system-and-its-effect-on-homelessness

Naeh. (2021, June 1). Is being homeless a crime?. National Alliance to End Homelessness.
https://endhomelessness.org/blog/is-being-homeless-a-crime/

The history of homelessness in the United States. (n.d.). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519584/

Community impact: The community impact on homelessness. CaringWorks, Inc. (n.d.). https://www.caringworksinc.org/our-
impact/community-impact/#:~:text=Homelessness%20Affects%20All%20of%20Us,as%20well%20as%20the%20future.

Mago, V. K., Morden, H. K., Fritz, C., Wu, T., Namazi, S., Geranmayeh, P., Chattopadhyay, R., & Dabbaghian, V. (2013,
August 23). Analyzing the impact of social factors on homelessness: A fuzzy cognitive map approach. BMC medical
informatics and decision making. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3766254/

Proven solutions. Coalition For The Homeless. (n.d.). https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/proven-solutions/

Two cities tried to fix homelessness, only one succeeded. - Caring for COVID’s Invisible Victims. (n.d.).
https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/howardcenter/caring-for-covid-homeless/stories/homeless-funding-housing-first.html