being full

There was a news article recently about rooming houses in Montreal, that the Mayor, or her staff in any case, took advantage of the Right of First Refusal to prevent developers from overtaking some of these rooming houses to tear them down and build condo complexes in their place.

I had only the vaguest idea of what a rooming house is - a house with many bedrooms that all share a small number of bathrooms and a kitchen and a living room with individual people living in each of the rooms and paying for that room. This is an early step in getting homeless people some kind of shelter.

During my two hour walk last night I had some time to think about this. Of course, like with many ideas I have I would need to be a bazillionaire. I'd want to build a 12, 16 or 20 storey building in the city that is grouped into groups of four storeys. Floor one would be rooming houses where perhaps there are two or three units that have six bedrooms and the remaining part of the floor is a cafeteria. On this floor no one would pay any rent - this is the very first stage of providing a homeless person a room they can call their own, with their own key, and access to the shared living space, and the cafeteria, where meals are free. The only people permitted to live on this floor are ones who are sent there by other social services.

The second floor would be units of 4 bedrooms, again rooming house style where they are locked, but there would be a charge of something easily covered, like 50$ per month. The rooms could be a bit bigger, the living room may have more amenities, the bathroom better appointed, and this floor would still have access to the cafeteria in the floor beneath it for free meals, but would also have a small kitchen for themselves. The only people that can move into these apartments are ones that move up from the floor beneath or are referred by social services and can afford this already.

The third floor would be units of two bedrooms with a full kitchen, living room, shared bathroom and a balcony. Here the rent might be 200$ per month per person, no longer free access to the cafeteria, but can pay for access to cafeteria. Again the only tenants of this floor are ones that move up from the floor beneath.

The fourth floor would be single tenant apartments with full kitchen, bathroom, living room and balcony. Rent here might be 500$ per month. There would be some kind of policy to eventually get the people living on this floor to move out of the building. Perhaps a limit to how long they can live there, perhaps an agreed upon accelerated rent increase that could be 10$ more every month, or 75$ more every six months. The hope is that by the time a person gets to this floor they have found a job they are able to keep and that eventually they can move out.

Additional ideas I had...

Social Workers do not get to get paid very much, so within this building, perhaps have one or two four bedroom units that are specifically for social workers, where rent isn't charged to them.

For the homeless that really can't get a job due to their physical or mental health, a little further out from the city where it would be less expensive to do so, build some permanent housing for these people and also hire a social worker (or two, or more) to visit with these people in their permanent homes on a regular and as needed basis.

Most of the homeless I see are male, however, there are bound to be females as well as some non-binary people; so in that 16 or 20 story building, perhaps have one block of four flours to be exclusively for women, I'm not certain yet how to handle the small non-binary group.

Some of the homeless are indigenous, so perhaps have one block of four for indigenous people and have decoration and food more appropriate. Hire social workers from indigenous groups to work with the people on these floors.

For each person, get their photo and develop a fact sheet, perhaps the social workers already do this kind of thing. An idea I had would be to approach some primary schools and ask if the kids, in whatever grade would be appropriate to do this, to write and send Christmas Cards to the people on floors one and two for each of the group of four floors. Provide the supplies - cards, envelopes, stamps and also limited copies of the fact sheets providing only what the homeless person would allow to share but that could help inspire the card writer to write something relevant. Then offer the homeless to write back to those kids but preface it with a warning that the letter will be read before it is sent - we need to be careful that nothing inappropriate is sent. Perhaps there needs to be a less authoritarian way to do this, perhaps the social worker works with the homeless person to write the return letter. The student's personal address wouldn't be given; the letter would be addressed back to the school so that the homeless person doesn't have any info about where the student lives. Perhaps find a way to do this that surprises the residents.

There is a serious problem of homelessness in many cities these days, it is a product of Capitalism. I have already started a monthly donation to the Welcome Hall Mission here in my city; a non-profit that deals especially with helping the homeless. That's about as much as I can afford to do, well, at least until I somehow become a bazillionaire.

To finish this post off; if I did become a bazillionaire, before doing anything like this I would want to meet with the people at the Welcome Hall Mission to explain my plan and see if they would have anything to say about it. Perhaps they have better ideas as to how I would be able to help with such vast resources.