‘It’s the New Form of Affordable Housing’: More People Are Living in Their Cars
New Idea: Car Park Shelters
Introduction
We are entering times of serious economic stress and times when people cannot earn enough to live anymore. They will have money, but it just won’t make it and there will not be enough shelters to hold them. So, there must be some new thinking, new solutions, and new ideas to help them cross the finish line. Car Park Shelters, without the government being involved, could be the answer. See, we are at that point, something must be done now, otherwise, we will be known as that generation that failed the most vulnerable among us! Living in a car is not great, but it is better than concrete, and a car shelter is safer than the streets.
Let’s look at His word as we start today;
Romans 12: 2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that you might prove what the will of God is, that which is good, acceptable, and perfect.
Philippians 4: 8
Finally, brethren whatever is true, whatever honorable, whatever honorable, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is anything excellence or anything worthy of praise, think on these things.
What Say You…
Hey, that homeless guy, in that car over there, why is he not moving on, we have laws you know, but where is he supposed to go, there are no shelters, we have laws, really?
What are these cars doing here, this parking lot is abandoned, there is not supposed to be anything here, it has been turned to a “Car Shelter,” a good use, right?
The Winding Path of Broken Mind-sets
For so long the mindset has been it is their fault, it is their problem, they do not need hands out just get a job, and if we help them, then they won’t get their lives in order, bad and wrong mindset. We have been taught to think that any homeless person is lazy, a bum an addict, a derelict, unwilling to work, a dangerous person, mentally unstable and the list could continue, but it was a false wall to hide behind. All that it accomplished was a have-and-have-not society as inflation, cost of living, and job loss spiraled out of control in this nation.
We are always as the crow flies is the shortest path, well that theory went out the window for the homeless community decades ago. As the government became more invested in the ‘solutions’ for homelessness the further away they became, and the path out got really winding in nature. Except for the real strange human, no one wants to live on the streets and the straight path out is the best. Winding paths are always messy and complicated, and the alphabet soup of government agencies have complicated life and increased the jail population.
Mindsets, the way one thinks or does a thing and to change the mindsets around helping the homeless and ending homelessness you must get the government out of the homeless business. Broken mindsets are only fixed as cancer is fixed by total eradication! Bring families back in, bring churches back in, the community should be helping the community, new mindsets. Homelessness is not new, but the mess is and that is because the community got lazy and let the government run the show, that must change. Car Park Shelters is a great place to start.
Real Life If Then Approach
If no new shelters or expanded ones, Then safe alternatives
If no affordable housing, Then, alternative, and unique housing
If they cannot sleep just anywhere, Then define where they can without penalties
If illegal to rough sleep, Then establish Car Park Shelters
If trying to protect citizens & cities, Then protect the most vulnerable
If the cost of living is out of control, Then a hand up, not handcuffs
If the abandoned is unused, Then Reuse for the Abandoned Humans
If the box of solutions is too small, Then crush it & solve problems
If the end comes in steps and stages, Then start somewhere
If no answers, Then what do we do….
Remember answers are rarely immediate and the refusal to think outside the box is quicker and more comfortable. But, the truth of homelessness is not going away and the easy answer does not exist. So, it is time to step away from the government dependency that solves nothing and feeds the jail system and step to answers and solutions for people trapped in a broken economic system.
It is as simple as this, why can’t that be used for this and then plan backwards to design a beautiful solution for an ugly problem!
Out of the Box Solution Opportunities
t has been said that if you are interested there are no real problems, only solution opportunities. This is a critical shift that those tasked with working with and for the homeless community must make soon. The most recent numbers show an increase of 12% in nationwide numbers. There are no shelters ready for these numbers. So, solution opportunities, but this I flying in the face of many states that are enacting criminal penalties for homelessness. One area ‘tried’ a Car Park Shelter and called it a failure after 6 months, that is bogus, they had no intent of it working!
If there are abandoned businesses, then there are abandoned parking lots that are doing no good for anybody. So why not put them to use and solve a problem at the same time? There is a way to have a Car Park Shelter that will not swirl out of control and will not cost the city or state thousands of dollars each month. It is called build systems into the opening of the shelter before the first car arrives and stands by the policies.
Guess what, a Car Park Shelter would remove a great number of the encampments that are springing up. How the people could keep their cars, no tickets or fines that lead to them being towed and the streets, sidewalks, and cities are cleaner. Too many are entrenched with the old way of thinking and we have to blow that box up and start all over again and look deliberately for solutions and answers to help people not be homeless for decades.
Penalize or Empower
Nationwide there is a terrible shift taking place, state after state is passing laws to ban, fine, and jail the homeless for sleeping outside. Now, encampments are not pretty and can, in fact, be dangerous, but literally from one extreme to another, is that how America now operates? What is and has been happening is the subtle removal of common sense and the needed middle ground called compromise.
Affordable housing is gone. Shelters are overflowing and none are being built. Jails beginning to feel the effects of the new laws. Tricks and traps from the government appear to be helping but only handcuffing the most vulnerable to cycles of abandonment. NIMBYism is on the rise which means no new housing, what are we to do in the face of this crisis?
Penalize or empower, that is literally what the Car Pak Shelter would do, empower those trapped and sleeping in their cars, empowered to try and start over again. It would remove fines, fees, jail, and tickets and stop the downward cycle that ensnares the homeless for too many years on the streets. If there was a chance to help, why would we choose handcuffs? Change has to come to the power structure that is addicted to the money that homelessness generates for the change to be released to help them
Finally, a three-fold cord to unwind the path
If we are going to work on ending street sleeping or rough sleeping as it is better known, then we have to have solutions that are not simply handcuffs and fines. Vehicular Homelessness is becoming more and more common with the new trend of working and employed homeless.
Unlike what has occurred in the past we need to handle this wave of needy humans with firm but gentle hands, so we do not end with car encampments, which is not healthy or good.
The threefold cord is something we hear about all the time in many ways. In this new dimension of sheltering, it would be Safety, Supportive Services, and Personal Responsibility. However this new batch of homeless is different, these are housing poor but often still working. This is a change that must come together like the two sides of a zipper and answers put in place to prevent the spiraling out of control.
This crisis now is unavoidable, the problems with inflation, unaffordable housing, and volatile food and gas prices are not changing any time soon. That means something else has to change unless we like the thought of throwing granny, auntie, and our church friend into jail because they are homeless. It is not to be long-term, it must be handled with supportive services, and in that the end is planned before the beginning
Conclusion
No one is shouting or jumping for joy over living in cars. But the alternative is street-dwelling homelessness with all of its related problems. A temporary Car Park Shelter system can address many problems head-on and bring answers that are needed
The main complaint of street homelessness is the mess, trash, blight, and such, so allowing them to keep the operational, functioning, and tagged car in each area would be an improvement for a given area
If anyone would admit to it services would be easier to hand out in each, secure, single area within a Car Park Shelter than with street homelessness, but that is thinking out the box, which is hard for many to do
Yes there would be rules, standards, and safety present, and possibly food and sanitation, make the transition back to housing easier or into a traditional shelter quicker, but can we change our thinking…
CTA…..
Answer this,
No one likes encampments, they are messy and sometimes dangerous, but with no shelters what are we to do for the homeless of today, what, new solutions, and who will think outside the box
Are we called our brothers’ keepers, and if so, how do we stand idly by when the government takes more and more aggressive steps to forcibly move the homeless out of sight and into jail
If the homeless of today are not the homeless of 5 or 10 years how safe are we in the perilous economy, one paycheck away, job loss, illness, and accident, how will you cope when they knock on your door?
