The problem New York City itself has had with the homeless population is actually quite visible in our daily commutes – just before I stepped into school to write this response, I encountered three different homeless people on the 6 train I took.

Like the coalition for the homeless article has declared, modern homelessness is mainly caused by a widened gap of disposable incomes on housing as well as an ever-declining number of available housing units such as SROs. It’s a vicious cycle at work – people could not find jobs to sustain themselves and are pushed into being homeless, while homelessness also deprived them of the means to compete in the current job market, which resulted in them stay as outsiders of our society.

I think one fundamental thing to change if we want to resolve the issue is to shape public’s opinions on the broader homeless population. It’s imperative to perceive them as able-handed men who only lacked the stable housing and homeless shelters would be an effective and cost-efficient way to contaminate this social phenomenon. Because if the public does not change its perception, construction of such projects will inevitably be encountered by aggressive push-backs. I remember couple years ago when the semi-abandoned hotel near Queens Blvd was said to be turning into a homeless shelter, it counteracted by numerous protests and homeowners in the area united to defend their argument – an incident exemplified how important it would be to change the public first.