New York is a state with the second largest homeless population in the United States, and we know it all too well. From the homeless men and women on the streets who stay out in the cold, to the people who are stuck in homeless shelters for years without sufficient assistance to get them back on their feet, the issue of homelessness is one that we have acted against but have not been able to solve.

The issue of homelessness is complex – while poverty may be the prime cause of homelessness, there are many things that cause poverty. The lack of a high-quality education for everyone regardless of their socioeconomic background, the lack of jobs due to a stagnating industry, or even social issues like the abuse of drugs or certain mental illnesses make it extremely hard for people to maintain jobs and pay for housing. It’s even worse as the issue of housing discrimination is very prevalent and has been here for decades. For instance, African Americans have been blocked from moving into majority white neighborhoods for decades now, and while fair housing laws have been passed, the issue is still largely there. Professor Douglas Massey from Princeton University states that an alarming one-third of African Americans living in cities are in fact living in highly segregated neighborhoods.

The government itself hasn’t been able to do much in reducing racial segregation in housing. The Section 8 Voucher Program, which provides assistance to low-income families in dire need of housing does try to solve the issue, but it falls short. The waiting list for it is as large as 25,000 in a city like St. Louis and there is a rental cap imposed that makes it hard for families to find decent homes. Furthermore, landlords do not necessarily have to accept these tenants because while the city enforces the law, the county does not. When it comes to the federal level, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development has also not quite done absolutely all they can to minimize the issue of housing discrimination in the US. Like Professor Jargowsky has said, “they work so much with the housing authority, and the housing authority works with the developers.” Instead of the people’s needs being met, they appear to be shoved aside.

HUD has not done so well regarding homelessness either. While their assessments have pointed out that homelessness has indeed dropped since the recession in 2007, it fails to take into account the many people who have come up with their own refuges outside of the formal housing shelters such as those who have “doubled up” or in other words, have been staying with different family members or friends. To me, it seems like the problem of homelessness is being grossly underrepresented and while the issue is definitely hard to solve, we shouldn’t be pretending that we are solving it by skewing the numbers.