Post #4: Housing Reflections

Tackling Homelessness in the Smart City

In defining the smart city, we should not limit ourselves to a technology-driven definition. The smart city should be one whose innovation is driven by inventiveness and creativity as well: solving problems not with cameras and touch-screens, but with changes in paradigm, altered perspectives, and updated perceptions. I believe that, rather than thinking of housing in the smart city as advancing the “most advanced”  housing experience, it should raise the bar at which we set the lowest level housing experience. Neil Smith makes note that there were only enough beds at the homeless shelter to house one quarter of the homeless people in New York City in 1989; he pairs this with Henry J. Stern’s quote, stating it would be “irresponsible to let the homeless sleep outdoors.” Homelessness is an issue that exists in every major city. The larger a city is, the more visible its homeless population—and not surprisingly, the easier it is to ignore it, look in the opposite direction, dismiss it as just another part of our advanced, 21st-century city. However, if we have any desire to visibly “advance” our cities from a housing standpoint, tackling homelessness would be the place to start.

There’s no question that all cities have a socio-economic hierarchy: there are the rich, there are the middle-class, and there are the poor. This hierarchy exists in every city, country, culture, and time period through history—some people will always have more money than others.

Here’s a little visualization of what that hierarchy looks like, in terms of wealth distribution:

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…and here’s what we as Americans think it should be (but that’s a different story altogether):

but-of-course-wealth-distribution-in-america-is-not-ideal-and-everyone-knows-that

The most obvious way to observe this is through housing. Some people own mansions. Others own double-wide trailers. Some choose to rent luxurious penthouse apartments; others rent under more humble circumstances (and often with a roommate or two, or three.) Fields states that large cities—New York City in this case—favor weakened rent regulations and increased gentrification because they represent “high profit potential.” (7) The unfortunate truth of the matter is that there are individuals who cannot afford to own OR rent these places to live. The other unfortunate truth is that these individuals are most always unemployed, and often have mental illnesses or disabilities to round out their plight.

Existing solutions are not effective enough for the smart city: nursing homes are expensive, and are difficult to access without a support system; homeless shelters, as alluded to above, are too often crowded and understaffed. They tend to be dangerous as well, making the park bench or brownstone stoop a much more viable place to take up refuge. Thus, the city is “plagued” by homelessness.

A solution to this issue, or at least an aspect of the solution, pairs well with an existing service location in Portland: Preble Street Resource Center. What Preble Street offers is a place that meets the needs of the most at-risk members of the Portland community, offering free meals, life education and counseling, etc., ultimately acting as the support group that these individuals lack otherwise. Of the Preble Street users, an overwhelming number of them are homeless. If Preble Street were paired with the facilities to house 90–100% of these users with modest, safe, temporary housing, we would see an increased success level among at-risk members of society, a decrease in overall city crime, and an overall improved city atmosphere. Essentially, we would be reinventing the halfway house for the 21st-century city.

With the resources and wealth that cities have today, there’s no question that even the largest homeless populations could be housed and given the resources necessary to survive and better integrate back in to society. If we could abolish homelessness in this sense, we would see an instant improvement to the very fabric of the city—an improvement that even IBM’s Rio de Janeiro installation has yet to accomplish.

Sources:

  • Smith, Neil. 2014. “Class Struggle on Avenue B,” excerpt from People, Place, and Space Reader. Gieseking, Jen Jack et al. Routledge, New York.
  • Fields, Desiree and Uffer, Sabina. 2014. The financialisation of rental housing: A comparative analysis of New York City and Berlin. Urban Studies Journal Foundation.
  • [images] 2013. “Wealth Inequality in America” ThinkProgress. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/03/334156/top-five-wealthiest-one-percent/