A Possible Solution! What's Your Opinion?

I was reading an article today that states that there are 4580 homeless either in shelters or living on the street. I also read in that same article that said it costs $100,000 a year to provide for each homeless person.

I decided to do a little math and noted that 458 Million dollars is being spent on the homeless per year. So if these numbers are correct, how come we are not doing more to rid Calgary of our homeless problem?

The way I figure it, we could buy 1200 houses @ a ¼ million each, which would cost 300 million dollars and house all homeless people in Calgary. Please correct me if I am wrong. Basically, if we put 4 people in each house then we would still have room for extra homeless; 220 spaces to be exact.

I think that if the government really wants to help curb homelessness, then let’s save the taxpayers some money and get them housed. By building these houses or even buying houses that are already on the market, the savings over a period of time would be phenomenal. To start we would have 158 million dollars to put into other services that would be essential to helping the homeless.

I realize there are still going to be issues with health care, and other essential needs of those in real housing. However there are already so many volunteers that want to help out and we could still use them. The volunteers could be used as a support network, visiting those that are in need. Some will have more needs than others and there will be those that will be able to live without the help of others.

Some people seem to think that the homeless wouldn’t be able to cope with such a responsibility as being housed in such a dwelling! I don’t agree! You would actually be surprised how smart some of the homeless really are. I know because I am homeless and I have met a lot of different types of homeless people through my life and found that some have very wise attitudes. I believe, given the opportunity, we could change so many homeless lives for the better.

One last comment:

This is just an idea and I hope I can receive comments on this blog, as I wish to hear what your opinion is! Please respond with your thoughts and ideas.

Tim Barber
Homeless but not without Hope