Housing First: Homelessness
P1. Human beings have been attempting to solve the homelessness problem the same way for years. The current strategy, is to first make the homeless clean from drugs and alcohol, and then find them a job and somewhere to live. This Idea sounds like a good one, but it is often very ineffective. David Bornstein, in his article “The Street-Level Solution,” mentions a common thread between chronic homeless people, that may be the reason they find it difficult to effectively assimilate into society. This thread is head trauma. Many homeless people have suffered a head trauma that could be the reason they find it difficult to get clean or find a job.
P2. Bornstein’s solution is the same as the organization “Common Ground.” What this organization does, is it focuses on the root of the problem with chronic homelessness. Common Ground helps homeless people by putting them in a home, no strings attached, and offering them the help that they need to become a functioning member of society. This is a new approach that deserves a chance. If the problem has been dealt with the same way for years and hasn’t been solved, it is time for a new approach.
P3. Most of the chronically homeless have had a head trauma, and that’s the scary part. Head trauma can happen to anybody. One blow to the head can turn a regular, functioning member of society into a chronically homeless person with lots of problems. Only when those problems are solved, can the chronically homeless really be helped.
P4. Traumatic Brain Injury, or TBI is a real problem. Gean and Fischbein write about TBI in their article on Clinicalkey.com “Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is termed “the silent epidemic” for good reason.” (Gean 1). TBI is a serious problem for everybody to be concerned about. “More than 1.5 million individuals sustain a new TBI each year.” (Gean 1). Anybody can sustain a TBI, this is why Bornstein’s idea is worth a look.
P5. In an article on jamanetwork.com, author Mitchell Katz writes about the chronically homeless. “The chronically homeless have a high prevalence of mental illness, substance use, and physical health problems, as well as higher use of emergency department visits, hospitalization days, and mortality.” (Katz 1). This “higher use of emergency department visits,” is another reason that this idea of housing first is a good one. It is actually cheaper to house the homeless, than to leave them out on the streets. When they are on the streets, they use emergency services so often, that it costs the city money. So the argument presented by Bornstein offers even more than before.
P6. The idea of housing first may not be the solution to chronic homelessness, but that will not be determined until it is given a fair shot. It has been tested in cities such as New York, and it not only has been effective, but it has saved the cities money as well. The idea is at least worth looking in to, and more cities in the United States should give it a try.
Works Cited
Katz, Mitchell H. MD. “Housing As A Remedy for Chronic Homelessness.” Jamanetwork. N.P, 3 Mar 2015. Web. 29 Jan. 2017
Gean, Alisa. Fischbein, Nancy. “Head Trauma.” Clinicalkey. NP No date listed. Web. 29 Jan. 2017
Bornstein, David. “The Street-Level Solution.” Opinionator. NP. 24 Dec. 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2017
Bornstein David. “A Plan to Make Homelessness History.” Opinionator. NP. 20 Dec. 2010. Web. 29 Jan 2017.
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Counterintuitive 
I love brevity, King, but the point of writing with economy is not to cover your subject in 500 words instead of 1000; it’s to convey so much information in your first 500 words that you can really kill the thing with your second 500 words. Spend more ideas on this AND make the best use of 1000 words in doing so.
I have numbered your paragraphs for easier referencing. Number them for me on future essays, please.
I indicated you need a title.
I changed your language from “Sources” to “Works Cited.”
Today in class we’ll do an Exercise to reinforce the Informal Citation technique.
In the next box, I’ll offer some help on the writing itself.
Working with your writing will be fun, King, because you have a friendly, approachable style that inspires reader confidence. Once you learn to manipulate your material better, you’ll be very persuasive.
Let’s look at your first three paragraphs. For a very brief paper, you repeat yourself quite a bit here. I’m going to take sentences out of order and cluster the content by theme.
Old vs. New.
The problem of chronic homelessness is a complicated one. For years it has been dealt with the same way, in that once the homeless people find jobs, their lives will be fixed, however this often is not effective. Common Ground helps homeless people by putting them in a home, no strings attached, and offering them the help that they need to become a functioning member of society. Only when those problems are solved, can the chronically homeless really be helped. Bornstein’s solution is the same as the organization “Common Ground.” What this organization does, is it focuses on the root of the problem with chronic homelessness. This is a new approach that deserves a chance. If the problem has been dealt with the same way for years and hasn’t been solved, it is time for a new approach.
Head Trauma.
Bornstein, in his article “The Street-Level Solution,” talks about how a surprising thread through many homeless people, is that of a severe head trauma. Because of this trauma, they find themselves unable to find jobs, or assimilate into society. Most of the chronically homeless have had a head trauma, and that’s the scary part. Head trauma can happen to anybody. One blow to the head can turn a regular, functioning member of society into a chronically homeless person with lots of problems.
It turns out you need only two paragraphs for your material, and once it’s clustered you can easily see how much the claims repeat.
Would you like to take the next step and revise this early material into two effective paragraphs? I hope you’ll take the suggestion. Once you’ve made your edits, return the post to the Feedback Please category and we can continue.
Helpful at all? I too appreciate feedback.
Classwork Complete
I see improvement, King, but you can do much better.
You added two sentences: one to start, one to close. Your first attempts to build a bridge, but neglects the easy “we.”
Feel free to ignore this advice for the rest of your life, but not when it’s the assignment. 🙂
You rely MUCH too much on “this” and “that,” both of which spread ambiguity. See how many of them you can eliminate, and how much rigor and power your writing will gain when you substitute specific terms.
The red note is a common punctuation error.
Use the author’s full name the first time you cite it, King. After that, the last name only technique, “Bornstein,” is perfect.
If many problems are solved by finding jobs for the homeless, then you can say, “problems such as homelessness have been solved in the same way.” But, unless I’m mistaken, you’re only solving the problems of the homeless here. So:
See the difference?
It’s possible I care about this stuff WAY TOO MUCH, King. But I’m not ready to quit with you yet.
I changed the introduction completely. Any thoughts on this? I tried to stay away from this and that
Better again.
New set of recommendations.
Suppose an author presented me with this sentence:
We could easily paraphrase the sentence by spreading out its claims into a string of smaller statements.
I say we could paraphrase it. But we would gain nothing by doing so, except lots of extra language without any added clarity. Can you try the reverse?
No further revisions.