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Can We Get Homelessness Right Post-COVID-19?
Finally we’ve ‘discovered’ people experiencing homelessness. Now what?
We need good news in this doom-and-gloom time. Hoping not to jinx it, it looks like the CORVID-19 aid package should become law. That’s a guarded bit of good news.
I’m not going to analyze the pros/cons of this massive aid bill. Nope, I’ll leave that for the policy wonks. As a service to those who care about the well-being of kids experiencing homelessness, check the updates provided by my friends at SchoolHouse Connection. If things evolve as we hope, significant funds will be directed to our nation’s homeless population. That’s the good news.
I want to offer food for thought (since we have time to sit around and think) that might give our nation a much-needed do-over on homelessness. It’s ours to grab and run with it or to screw up even worse.
As Ed Yong astutely lays out in his Atlantic article,
Pandemics can also catalyze social change. People, businesses, and institutions have been remarkably quick to adopt or call for practices that they might once have dragged their heels on, including working from home, conference-calling to accommodate people with disabilities, proper sick leave, and flexible child-care arrangements.
