President Obama Committed To Tackling Homelessness

Here in England the government seems to be intent on hurting the most vulnerable, particularly the homeless, in our society. On the other side of the pond, however, US President Barrack Obama seems to have set off in the opposite direction by announcing a goal to “eliminate child and family homelessness by 2020.”

Writing in The Guardian, Mary O’Hara says that these are not just empty words. The President has put in a request to Congress to raise over $10bn in the coming fiscal year budget, specifically to help homeless families and children. The Homeless Assistance For Families proposal is seen as yet another sign that homelessness is being taken seriously at national level.

However, as with anything the President proposes, the success of this plan depends on whether Congress agrees to allocate the funds. Even though there hasn’t exactly been a cordial relationship between the White House and Congress, if the proposal does pass it could be life-changing for tens of thousands of destitute families.

Despite an overall reduction in homelessness over the past few years (down 10% since 2010) it is estimated that more than 64,000 families, including 130,000 children, are homeless on any one night in the USA.

But according to Nan Roman, chief executive of the National Alliance To End Homelessness, the proposal would “give communities exactly what they need to end homelessness for families with children once and for all.”

What is crucial about the president’s proposal, says Roman, is that the funds will be designated as “mandatory”, meaning the federal government would be responsible for allocating the money and the funding wouldn’t be subject to the vagaries of annual budget renegotiations. (In the UK this used to be known as ‘ring-fenced’ – a rare bird these days!)

As Mary O’Hara points out: “It wasn’t that long ago when campaigners in the US could look to Britain as a place committed to investing resources in reducing homelessness and hold it up as evidence of what works. Not any more.”