Daulton Kirk

Elizabeth Hudson
HON 1000
1 December 2014
Spare Change?
Drive down any main street in a major city across the country and the chances of seeing a
person with a piece of cardboard saying HOMELESS PLEASE HELP THANK YOU GOD
BLESS or WILL WORK FOR FOOD are quite high. Many will just walk or drive by these
people and look the other way without a second thought. However, someone eventually stops
and gives them some of the change out of their cup holder or a $1 bill. These people are often
referred to as homeless or bums or hobos or even alcoholics/ druggies that spent all
their money to get high and/or drunk. These people are not even considered human beings in
the opinions of some. The fact of the matter is that they are humans, they are wearing worn out
clothes and begging strangers for spare change or food and they need help. They need help to get
back on their feet, get off park benches and into a bed. The depressing issue of homeless is one
that is echoed through almost every urban city across America.
Detroit is home to over 20,000 individuals of the states total homeless population of
approximately 95,000. Although this is the most populated area for homeless individuals, local
and state governments seem to be focusing on fixing other problems and cutting funds from
services that help homeless in order to do so; which happens to be resulting in an increase of
homelessness while other major homeless-populated cities are decreasing in numbers. The issue

of homelessness in the state, but mainly Detroit, cannot be reduced and eventually solved
without the funding needed to implement plans that will do so. The question is what kind of plan
should be implemented to reduce (and eventually end) homelessness and how do we get the
appropriate amount of funding needed to implement this plan? This is where the homeless
organizations and state officials need to come together. The homeless organizations of Detroit,
such as the Homeless Action Network of Detroit (H.A.N.D.), have practiced the ideas and plans
needed to reduce homelessness through trial and error but do not have enough resources. On the
other hand, the state officials are offering nearly $6.8 million along with the $5.3 million in
Federal Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) to public and nonprofit organizations that respond to
the needs of those experiencing homelessness through an implementation strategy known as a
10-Year Plan to End Homelessness (MHSDA Announces). This is the key to reducing the
homeless population in the Metro area and hopefully spread throughout the rest of the state,
region, and country until homelessness is a thing of the past.
As I mentioned earlier, the Homeless Action Network of Detroit has served as the lead
agency for the Continuum of Care for Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park, (Continuum of
Care). The Continuum of Care is a planning process implemented by the Department of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD) in 1994. This is one of the largest sources of federal funding for
programs that assist the homeless and those at-risk of becoming homeless. H.A.N.D. is the
middleman that brings together the network of organizations aiding the homeless, coordinates
plans for funding, and applies to the HUD for appropriate funding of their plans and strategies.
This prevents the over-/underfunding and the repetition of funding of the programs plans and
eliminates the fear of wasted investments by the Federal government.

H.A.N.D. also oversees and manages the Homeless Management Information System
(HMIS) - a system used to provide accurate information of who is homeless in each community,
what their needs are, and what is working to address those needs. HMIS is a database used for
organizations to record and send their information about the people they served to H.A.N.D.,
which will then put the information into the system. This program is mandated by the Federal
government in order to receive funding from HUD. As well their role as the connection between
local organizations and the Federal government, H.A.N.D. plays a big role in taking appropriate
actions that focus on funding for homeless assistance, the creation and funding of lowincome/affordable housing for those that are homeless and at-risk of homelessness, funding for
access to mainstream benefits (Social Security, Medicare, etc.), housing and safety decency in
the city of Detroit, and health care. Therefore, H.A.N.D. plays a huge role not only as a homeless
assistance organization themselves but also as the organizer, collaborator, planner, and monitor
of other organizations working to get people off the streets of Detroit and the funding they need
to do so.
It is no doubt that homelessness is a big problem in Detroit that affects other citizens in
the city as well as the surrounding cities. What exactly caused this large homeless population in
this once great American city? First of all, homelessness in the Metro area is somewhat
untraditional as to the root of which it was caused. As a matter of fact, there is a multitude of
sources and events since the beginning of the 1900s that caused the homeless population to
eventually reach the current population of over 20,000 in Detroit. Not including the ones that left
to suburban cities for better opportunities.
The causes of homelessness in Detroit comes from the increase in global automotive
competition that eventually led up to the popularity of suburbs, construction of the freeway,

postwar job loss, riots, and the fleeing of middle class whites from the city through an interesting
chain of events. According to research by Pete Saunders in The Reasons Behind Detroits
Decline, these sort of problems occur in big cities across the country. However, Detroit seems to
be very rare in the sense that it has suffered and declined and has yet to make some sort of a
comeback. Cleveland and Buffalo have suffered similar economic losses but have not declined to
the same depth as Detroit. Detroit has political corruption, but Chicagos was much worse and
yet they still thrive to this day.
According to his research, Saunders breaks down the decline of Detroit into four main
factors throughout the last century. First, the rapid growth of the number of factories used for the
automotive industry within the city plus the lack of a parallel in the citys size led to
suburbanization as people wanted to move away from the noisy, smelly and smoky factories
that dotted the landscape. Second, the pressure to meet housing space with population caused
the construction of similar model houses that lacked contemporary appeal that led to people
leaving the city for a variety of housing options and designs. Third, the industrialized citys
increase in competition in the automobile industry led to many abandoned buildings of bankrupt
businesses. And lastly, the amount of industrial land and buildings abandoned by the fleeing
businesses left little or no space for the city beautiful to revive and attract people to this place
when the industry of the city profitable had failed. I assume that organizations and businesses
have tried to redevelop the land since it has been abandoned; however, the destruction of the old
buildings and consolidation of the land has proven too costly and difficult to do so rather than
plow a field and build somewhere else. The timeline of the citys demise: 1) beginning around
1900 with the start of the automotive industry and its rapid growth 2) shifted into the period of
post-WWII where the spread of foreign automotive competition that caused to economic collapse

and 3) racial segregation in the streets of Detroit proved too much for the economy. As a result
of the downward economic spiral, the homeless population grew in the staggering 20,000+
homeless in the city that can only hold about 1,800 homeless in its remaining single homeless
shelter and the three emergency shelters.
As I mentioned earlier, other major industrial cities have felt major economic hardships
and are dealing with the crisis of homelessness in these major cities. However, Detroit felt the
economic collapse harder than other cities and must work harder in order to come up from the
ashes and rubble of its burned houses and abandoned buildings. In cities such as Los Angeles,
who has the highest homeless population of any state, there was a plan called Bring L.A.
Home adopted from national program End Homelessness in 10 Years. This program was
designed to end chronic and youth homelessness in 5 years then end substance-abuse and
mentally ill homelessness in 10 years. It is obvious this program did not meet those goals of
ending homelessness since it is still a problem today. However, it was a foot in the door.
Since the end of the 10 year plan, an End Homelessness in 10 Years 2.0 plan has been
created. It was administered by President Barack Obama and the Department of Housing and
Urban Development in 2010 called Opening Doors. This program has been redesigned off of
the original plan to end homelessness and restarted with improved methods to end homelessness
by 2020. L.A. is home to approximately 54,000 homeless and an estimated 18,000 uncounted
homeless as well. This is the second highest number of homeless in a city, behind New York
City. According to a news article on the Huffington Post titled Top 10 Highlights of 2013 in
Ending Homelessness in Los Angeles, local L.A. organizations have provided housing for 10,000
homeless from 2010 to 2013. This is evidence that this plan is working towards ending
homelessness, but the numbers are not enough to reach the ten year goal.

Using the facts and figures reported to the United States Interagency Council on
Homelessness, the goal of ending homelessness has a long way to go but signs of improvement
are showing. If Detroits city officials and state legislators can implement the Opening Doors
policies into the city with the help of local organizations the same way as the city of Los
Angeles, then there is the possibility of similar results. Since the number of homeless in Detroit
is nearly half the size of LAs, it is quite possible that they can end homelessness within that ten
year goal. If Detroit has similar results as LA- 10,000 homeless off the streets- then nearly the
entire homeless population in Detroit can be erased in a matter of 6 or 7 years. This is what we
have been searching for, a possible solution to homelessness that has the numbers to prove that it
works. This is what we need to jump on immediately and get going as soon as possible. This is
how we get Detroit back on its feet. This would be a tremendous step for the revival of Detroit.

Works Cited
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