How business can help end homelessness

Business leaders, small and big, can help end homelesssness by offering work experience, says the writer. Archive photo: Ashraf Hendricks / GroundUp

A growing list of cities are solving homelessness. Movements like Built for Zero prove it’s possible to implement dignified, lasting solutions—and save money in the process.

These success stories were possible because of a shift in perspective: once residents understood homelessness as a shared, fixable problem, their approach changed. Diverse coalitions started investing in evidence-based solutions and everyone got to enjoy the collective benefits that come from solving homelessness.

Solving homelessness makes societies more resilient and safer. It makes economies stronger and more productive.

By contrast, ample evidence shows that criminalising homelessness, ignoring it, or failing to implement holistic, data-driven strategies, ends up costing everyone.

In recent years we’ve been encouraged by a shift in Cape Town. Collaboration is increasing and media coverage is becoming more nuanced. As more people start making links between homelessness and its root causes — including childhood poverty, untreated trauma and social inequality — we can leave harmful misconceptions behind and focus our energy on practical, proven solutions.

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This week, as organisations like ours – Streetscapes and New Hope SA – mark World Homeless Day, it’s our hope that more Capetonians also see homelessness as a shared, fixable problem. It’s especially critical that more business leaders, big and small, realise that they too can help.

The most effective way to end homelessness is to provide people with stable, affordable housing as quickly as possible. Stable housing gives people dignity, security, and community integration. But this is expensive and primarily something the state and non-profit organisations have to make sure happens.

So how can business help?

We’ve consistently seen that as someone who has had no house recovers and rebuilds a life, the role of work is indispensable. And not only for income, though this is vital. For someone who’s been trapped in survival mode, the path back to health, stability and self-confidence is tough to navigate. Work makes this journey easier by providing the reliable rhythm of a routine and an opportunity to contribute.

It’s hard to overstate the value of self-worth in the process of recovering from homelessness, and working does wonders for self-esteem. Anyone who’s been out of work and then got a job has felt that boost of pride and the enduring benefit of belonging somewhere and being part of a team. This experience is amplified many times over for people who’ve been through the isolation and degradation of homelessness.

By creating more work experiences, business leaders and social enterprises can play a vital role in solving homelessness — all while helping their own bottom line.

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Several of these mutually-beneficial partnerships already exist. The team at Fresh Solutions Western Cape offers Streetscapes clients temporary job opportunities, job shadowing and onsite experience at their Milnerton pack house facility, where fresh vegetables get packed for major retailers.

New Hope SA residents regularly job train and contribute to construction projects at UBU, a social enterprise that uses sandbag technology to build sustainable, affordable homes.

And our friends at Mould Empower Serve (MES) and Voortrekker Corridor Improvement District (VRCID) both work with Spar branches to connect clients to full-time employment and temporary work such as pamphlet distribution.

These practical, hands-on partnerships are helping people build CVs, learn new skills, grow in confidence, and secure employment. Business partners benefit from a vetted pool of workers who come with references and a support network of social workers and counsellors.

We see enormous, untapped potential for collaboration with industries including hospitality, retail, factory work, food service, maintenance and gardening, to name a few. Most non-profit companies have budgets for training courses and even stipends for work activities, which means we can contribute materially to get partnerships off the ground and keep them running.

It’s no secret that unemployment and homelessness are inextricably linked. Not having a roof over your head, an address, or a place to shower makes landing or keeping a job impossible. And without a steady job, any one of us would struggle to get or keep a roof over our head. As we work toward solutions to the larger crises of affordable housing and unemployment, we shouldn’t forget that there is plenty we can do right now.

We have a long way to go to build the city-wide community of care we need to prevent and solve homelessness. But we’ve started moving in the right direction. And with more business partners, we can move much faster.

Views expressed are not necessarily the publisher's.

This article was originally published on GroundUp.