Dear future president,

Homelessness is a huge problem all around the world. There is not enough housing or soup kitchens to support the many people who are homeless. It is a complex problem, and not one solution will solve it, but we should be working towards preventing it.

If you had a friend that was homeless you would do everything you could to help them. Why is it any different when it’s people you don’t know? We have a moral obligation as humans to take care of each other, so when there are homeless people, it shows that we aren’t supporting each other. According to the 2009 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress of the US Department of housing and the Urban Development California alone has 82,352 unsheltered homeless people and only 50,777 sheltered. Oregon, my home state, has 9,867 unsheltered and 7,442 sheltered. This are just two of the many places around the world that have lots of homeless people.

However, I understand some people don’t want to help the homeless. They believe that either it is the homeless person’s fault that they are in the situation that they are, that if a homeless person really didn’t want to be homeless they could work to get out of it, or maybe they just can’t afford to help. I’m sure some people really are in a situation where they can’t afford to help, but there are ways around that. Along the East and West coast large metropolitan areas have taken different approaches to helping the homeless in the last 10 years. The communities take the homeless people and put them straight into a supportive house called “housing first”. “The thought is that it’s a lot more likely that a person will work on their problems if they’re in an apartment or single-room occupancy facility rather than in a cavernous barracks with 100 other people with the same and worse problems,” explains Straughan the executive director of the Homeless Alliance in Oklahoma city. ”Some really good longitudinal research indicates that this approach can be both cost-effective and successful.” According to the Fannie Mae Foundation and the Corporation for Supportive Housing, a nonprofit based in New Haven, Connecticut. This saved 6000$ compared to when the homeless were housed in shelters.

It is a law for children to have to attend school, but can you imagine how hard this is for the homeless? Although homeless children are usually able to attend school, there are a lot of other factors that get in the way. The National Coalition for the homeless examines many reasons it would be difficult for homeless children to attend school, including residency requirements, delays in transfer of records, transportation problems, and that's only the beginning.

Our future president shoud take this matter very seriously, there is not one way to solve the matter of homelessness, but he should be working towards helping stop it. The real question is if someone is living on the streets with no food, shelter, money, or hope of continuing why wouldn't you try to help them?

Sincerely, Klarice Larson