In Our View: Homelessness Hinders

It is, indeed, a vicious cycle. And as Vancouver and other cities undertake efforts to deal with a growing homeless crisis, the need for breaking that cycle becomes clear.

As part of a three-part series by The Columbian that examined the state of Vancouver’s housing situation, reporters demonstrated that the impact goes well beyond what the public sees on the streets, in the parks or at freeway off-ramps; the front line of the homeless problem inevitably lands on the doorstep of area schools. Evergreen Public Schools on Nov. 4 counted 576 students as being homeless, an increase from 518 the previous year. In Vancouver Public Schools, the number of homeless students was 692, up from 570 a year ago, and the Battle Ground School District saw an increase to 185 homeless students from 166 in 2015.

Despite an improving economy, the fruits of that improvement have remained out of reach for far too many families, as demonstrated by 10 percent increases in the number of homeless students. As Melanie Green, supervisor for Evergreen’s Family and Community Resource Centers, was quoted as saying: “Learning begins in the home. But what if you don’t have a home?”

There is a line of thought that says homeless people must take responsibility for their situation and that persistent public assistance has only exacerbated the crisis. While that view is worthy of intensive debate, the equation becomes much more complicated when children are involved. As homeless advocate Bruce Lesley told Newsweek in 2014: “Children are kind of like the canaries in the coal mine. The first to be negatively affected by recessions and the last to recover.”

There are many causes for the nation’s homeless pandemic, and in Vancouver a lack of affordable housing can be easily identified as one of those causes. But the question becomes how best to extricate ourselves from the situation. Free-market solutions are not adequate when many members of a young generation are uncertain whether they will have a bed next week or an adequate meal tomorrow.

Those shortcomings have been demonstrated to harm academic performance and trigger discipline problems in schools. It has been said, rightly so, that education is essential to fostering a prosperous adulthood, but too many children are ill-equipped for taking advantage of their educational opportunities because of their family’s economic insecurity.

The result of all this is a cycle of generational poverty; it is difficult to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when your family is unable to afford boots. In “A Framework for Understanding Poverty,” Dr. Ruby K. Payne detailed how, among other things, generational poverty leads those in its grip to possess a strong belief in fate or destiny because choices are in short supply. “Being proactive, setting goals and planning ahead are not a part of generational poverty,” she writes.

The longer that a family finds itself without reliable housing, the greater the impact upon a child’s education and the school officials entrusted with that education. Meanwhile, it becomes more likely that children are conditioned toward a long-term poverty that impacts their adulthood.

The costs of addressing homelessness can be high. But the costs of failing to address it are far greater.