The Process
Housing and Community Development SpecialistSignificant Role in Solving Homelessness and Unemployment
Homelessness and unemployment is a vicious cycle!
That’s why housing and community development specialist works hard in helping put an end to these issues.
A lot of people may not realize that being homeless makes finding a job in the labor market a more challenging one. Worse is, these homeless people are being labeled as lazy, because they can’t land a job and have been unemployed for a long time. This is not true.
Based on research, homeless people are rooting to be employed. A lot of them want to work and diligently seek for employment opportunities. But the realities of homelessness make it next to impossible for them to get hired and maintain stable employment.
Employment Difficulties for Homeless People
Imagine yourself as a homeless person who’s planning to apply for a job. What address will you put in your resume? And yes the contact number, where can your potential employer contact you for call backs? How will you prepare for job interviews if you don’t have a safe place to stay?
On the other hand, those who are lucky enough to be employed, have no chance to recover from a day’s work in a safe environment. They don’t know where to take a shower, prepare food – including food to take to work and getting a good night’s sleep is very difficult.
These things seem to be very basic for you, but for those who are among the homeless population, these are big issues that are keeping them from landing a job.
According to the research study of community development consultancy firms, participants are reported to be embarrassed when they have to explain to a potential employer that they didn’t have proper identification cards or a bank account.
It’s not surprising at all why many decide against disclosing their homelessness status. The fear of being disqualified automatically as a suitable candidate is overwhelming.
Other employment hindrances among homeless people can include the following:
• Limited access to transportation
• Substance use and mental health issues
• Criminal record
• Low educational attainment
• Physical disability
• Lack of work experience in the field of interest
• Lack of vocational training
• Lack of access to computer
A homeless person might be able to get a job, but most of the time they are forced to work in unregulated and unsafe workplace.
Getting paid under the table is also a rampant occurrence. Wages are lower than the average rates and inconsistent.
Homelessness likewise interferes with long term career planning. Since homeless people can only get temporary work, it prevents relationship building with employers. Homeless workers always end up with risky jobs wherein their supposed benefits are nonexistent. There are even cases where these vulnerable workers are being exploited as cheap labor.
Survival of the fittest- homelessness and unemployment impact to the youth
As housing and community development specialist, we have witnessed the reality that homelessness makes people adopt very dangerous survival tactics. In order to earn money, some homeless individuals panhandle, deal drugs, steal and/or get involved with sex work.
According to a study, homeless youth who are high school drop outs are more likely to engage in sex work and panhandling. If given the choice, majority of these youth who are involved in such work would prefer working within the formal economy. Needless to say, homeless youth face more challenges to getting a decent job compared to their adult counterparts.
Here are some of the factors that add to their difficulties in finding a job – age discrimination, lack of support group that will encourage them to plan and pursue career opportunities.
In addition to that, homeless youth likewise have weak social and human support in terms of education, families and friends. They also lack in life skills such as time management, conflict resolution and education. Last but not the least, they don’t have enough support with transition to adulthood.
What can be done?
There should be affordable and appropriate housing programs in order to truly end homelessness in the long term. However, we cannot discount the importance of stable source of income for the homeless population.
As a community development program specialist, we believe that there should be a clear objective of ending homelessness. It seems very simple at first glance.
But as we look closer to what’s happening today regarding this issue, many organizations and government agencies only find ways to reduce it and/or make homelessness manageable.
We believe that in order to end homelessness, we should attack the problem right at its root cause. Instead of merely responding, there should be preventative measures in order to stop this problem from drastically spreading.
There should be a community plan to end homelessness. The West Project of the Ximura Consulting is one of our solutions to help homeless people have a more decent life. This project is designed to create realistic goals and measurable outcomes that communities can work together towards the elimination of homelessness in their area.
No turning back…
Homelessness and unemployment are issues that cannot be fixed overnight. Everyone needs to be relentless, not just in finding a permanent solution, but more importantly in preventing these problems from affecting more people.
That being said the Ximura Consulting Team are continuously building and creating housing projects that can prevent the homelessness and unemployment problem from getting worse.
Aside from affordable housing programs, we are continuously working with other communities and organizations guiding them towards providing vocational courses, youth programs and job creation projects.
If you want to know more information about our projects and causes, please do not hesitate to contact us.