Preventing Homelessness

By James Shearer

After Boston's homeless census showed an 11 percent increase throughout the city, the state decided to give Housing First more money to help with homelessness.

But where Housing First deals with homelessness as it is, the answer may be more in preventing homelessness to begin with.

Homelessness is more than lacking money. To prevent homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse must be addressed. Most importantly, we must abandon our cliched ideas about who falls into the patterns of substance abuse or who ends up out on the streets. It can happen to anyone.

Domestic violence should also be confronted and it should be recognized that many escape domestic violence by heading to the streets.