Kerala, India Offers Housing to Tackle Homelessness
The state of Kerala is offering free housing to people experiencing homelessness. Executive Director of Housing and Land Rights Network, Shivani Chaudhry, says that with this housing plan, the Indian government can shift the focus of its efforts from temporary accommodation to permanent housing. About 145 families have received housing so far in southern India this month. Local officials have gathered data on the state of homelessness and plan to build over 400,000 homes, said U.V. Jose, Chief Executive of the LIFE Mission – a government agency overseeing the project. Chaudhry suggests that this ambitious model is “the only viable solution to end homelessness” throughout India.
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Bristol, UK Aims to End Rough Sleeping by 2027
Bristol, England has a new strategy aimed at eradicating rough sleeping by the year 2027. According to St. Mungo’s, over 900 people were living without shelter in Bristol in 2018 – a 23 percent increase from the previous year. By 2022, the city will work towards a 50 percent reduction in local homelessness. The five-year plan will be based on prevention. Leaders propose increasing transitional housing, efforts to combat homelessness among young people and people leaving institutions, such as prisons and hospitals.
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NAEH: Approaching Data Visualization
There has been a great shift toward evidence based, data-driven efforts to end homelessness throughout the world. On the National Alliance to End Homelessness blog, Jackie Janosko discusses effective ways to communicate such significant data through data visualization. Janosko suggests that data visualization provides a multitude of benefits for the homelessness service sector, such as allowing easy monitoring of individual and systemic progress within a community or viewing trends in lengths of stay and exits to permanent housing.
“The future of our mission relies on using data to make informed decisions. Using well designed, thoughtful visualizations to help make those decisions will be an enormous help to every community who chooses to embrace it,” said Janosko.
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Middle-aged Homelessness in Seoul, South Korea
Kang Seung-woo of The Korea Times reports on homelessness among middle-aged people in Seoul, South Korea. According to a joint study by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, Seoul Welfare Foundation and Seoul Association of Institutes for the Homeless, the average person began experiencing homelessness during their middle-age years. An estimated 3,478 people were living without shelter in 2018 and had been for approximately 11 years. People surveyed shared that contributing factors included financial hardship, marital issues and substance abuse. The local government says that homelessness has been steadily declining since 2013.
Read the article here.