One year down, nine to go.
Just over a year ago, Durham officially unveiled its "10-Year Plan to End Homelessness in Durham." Four outcomes, 21 strategies, and 50 pages of details spell out exactly how Durham will be cured of homelessness by 2016.
Grand strategies and sweeping plans are definitely "in" these days, from Duke's Campus Culture Initiative to Jeffrey Sachs and the United Nation's plan to halve global poverty by 2015. Everybody is making a plan that will sound sexy, grab headlines and motivate the public to get involved.
This plan is no exception, and it really doesn't say that much. Full of sweeping statements, it remains rather short on details of how implementation will proceed or who will fund what. For example, one strategy is to "develop sufficient resources to assess, evaluate and move homeless people from emergency shelters to transitional or permanent housing." The timeline is "ongoing," the cost is noted as "high" and the entities responsible are "city, county, private." Hmm. Seems like there are a few minor details to work out.
To be fair, before the city begins moving forward on such a momentous undertaking, it is important to have a vision statement-even a vague one. Durham deserves credit for bringing together a wide cross-section of voices, including direct input from a large number of Durham's homeless population. The plan eloquently articulates the struggles Durham's homeless face and begins to identify areas for intervention.
So here's the real question: Can we do it? Forget about completely ending homelessness-let's look beyond the semantics. Is it possible to dramatically reduce poverty in Durham in a way that will get today's homeless residents back on their feet and prevent others from falling into poverty?
Hundreds of Duke students study public policy, urban planning, economics and sociology-all of which investigate urban poverty. Here's a real-life chance to apply those studies.
Money alone cannot cure poverty. The plan's long-term success will depend on how effective the community can be in getting at the root causes of poverty in Durham. Furthermore, homeless people can serve their own soup. Volunteer work needs to move beyond the band-aid approach to find sustainable interventions.
Contrary to popular belief, being homeless does not just imply a lack of shelter, and homelessness doesn't necessarily go away by building more houses. The City of Durham estimates that about 2,500 people experience homelessness at some time in Durham each year. Public policy professor Jake Vigdor pointed out that the number of people homeless at any one time is substantially less than this, while according to a 2006 Census report there were between 9,000 and 14,000 vacant housing units in Durham County.
Clearly, then, a shortage of housing is not the primary problem, and building more housing-even if it is designated "affordable housing"-isn't automatically going to get people off the streets. It's great that the city plans to build more affordable housing units and that Duke has contributed significantly to this project, but it's not enough.
The plan certainly recognizes other issues are important. But it is a lot harder to find employment for the mentally ill ex-convict or offer legal assistance to the poor single mother being evicted. The alcoholic veteran needs long-term support and the child with a learning disability who still cannot read in the sixth grade needs more than once-a-week tutoring.
For the plan to be effective, we will have to find new answers-free or low-cost health care, legal aid, employment counseling, educational support and assistance to navigate complicated bureaucracies of local, state and federal programming. Many of these ideas are noted in the plan, but when the responsible party is listed as "city, county, private" it is not at all clear who will step up and take on the task.
This is where Duke comes in. As Durham's largest employer, biggest contributor to the economy and most venerable collection of scholars, any effort to eradicate poverty will be contingent on Duke's full involvement-both at the student level and in University administration. This does not just mean giving lots of money to Durham or sending students to serve at a soup kitchen.
As students, we should be a part of the action. How can we put our expensive educations to work in tackling this enormous social problem? Duke officials have indeed been involved with the development of the plan from the beginning, and most students volunteer at some point while they are here.
But doing something is not enough. Serving soup and even building houses will not make poverty go away. In my next column I will look specifically at what Duke students and Duke as an institution have contributed to the effort so far. In the meantime, here is an opportunity for all of us in the University community to think creatively about what our role can be in achieving Durham's grand plan.
David Fiocco is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Monday.
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