Understanding homelessness

PUNCHLINE

Ike Seneres

As early as five years ago, there was no concept of homelessness in the Filipino mind. The reason for that perhaps is that during that time, the poor people in our country could afford to build shanties in open land, regardless of who owns the land.

That is also another factor to consider, because at that time, there were more open spaces to squat on. The present situation nowadays however is that many of the poor people could no longer afford to build shanties and that is probably the reason why there are now many homeless persons among us.

There are homeless persons everywhere, perhaps in every country, even in the developed countries like the United States of America. What is perhaps unique in our country is that we not only have homeless persons, we also have homeless families, and entire families at that.

Having dealt with homelessness for so long a time now, the people in the USA have developed a system of providing temporary homeless shelters. Note however that these are only temporary shelters for their poor people, and are not permanent housing facilities.

As I remember it, the services of the homeless shelters in the USA were very defined, as they are focused on giving their temporary guests a bed for the night, soup for supper, a respectable breakfast, and toilets with shower rooms. This is similar to what former MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando put up near Anda Circle, except that it was for transients who had to pay a small amount. What we need this time is not a cheap hotel, but a completely free homeless shelter perhaps in every metropolitan city, similar to the model in the USA.

In the USA, most of the homeless shelters are operated by private and non-profit organizations such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army. Perhaps in some places, the local government units (LGUs) would donate to these private organizations and that by itself is a good model for cooperation.

As I understand it as well, most of the buildings that are used by these organizations are also privately owned by them, perhaps with some tax incentives from the LGUs or even from the State and the Federal governments.

Here in the Philippines, there are many vacant and abandoned buildings that were either repossessed or foreclosed by the LGUs or by their creditors. Since many of these buildings are located in the metropolitan areas where there are large concentrations of homeless persons, it would perhaps be a sensible idea to put these buildings to good use, since neither the LGUs nor the creditors would like to keep them idle any longer.

As a matter of fact, the creditor banks would just be too happy to take these idle assets off their books, and any positive movement in their accounts would be welcome news for them.

There is also a second category of buildings that are neither abandoned nor foreclosed, but are vacant just the same. The owners of these buildings are now carrying the burden of paying taxes for them, but they are caught in a Catch-22 situation, because no one would rent or lease these buildings now, and that is why it is also not a good investment for them to repair or rehabilitate these buildings.

What they need is a way out of that Catch-22 situation, in such as way that it would turn into a win-win situation, without shelling out money on their part.

In the first category of buildings, it could also be a win-win situation for the LGUs or the creditors if the private organizations could buy these properties perhaps under lease-purchase agreements. In the second category of buildings, it could be a win-win situation for the owners if the private organizations could fix them using volunteer labor and donated materials, after which these could be returned to the owners in good condition after the usufruct agreement expires.

There is no end to the possible variations in what could be done, as long as there is a will to do this. While the overnight guests are inside these buildings, I am sure that there would be time to check on their medical, dental and psychological needs, and that could be provided by teams of doctors who would be there on a rotating basis, the whole exercise being treated like a continuing series of medical missions.

Since we will also be dealing with a good number of homeless families, it would also be good to check on the educational status of their children, to check whether or not they would need some assistance.

At a recent meeting of the Corinthian Coffee Clutch (C3), we decided that we should become program managers, instead of project implementers. We agreed that there are some local private organizations that are already helping the homeless people, and what we should do is to help those who are already helping them, instead of starting new projects on our own.

We agreed that our role is to “connect the dots” or the gaps in the coordination between the industry, the civil society and the bureaucracy, in order to make the process flow better and faster. Via the industry, we mean the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) projects of the private companies. Via the civil society, we mean the socially oriented projects of the private organizations. Via the bureaucracy, we mean the social action programs of the LGUs and the national government agencies.