Solving Our Nation's Problems - Homeless

Let me preface this blog with a quick note; I am not an economist and I do not claim to know how the economy works. I am, however, a voting patriotic constituent who recognizes obvious waste in the system. I see opportunities that are at the very least worthy of a blog and open for discussion.

We have a terrible homeless problem in the United States of America. In fact, the problem is so bad that there is an annual report submitted to Congress called The Annual Homeless Assessment Report (https://www.onecpd.info/resources/documents/ahar-2013-part1.pdf). That is correct, we have a report. So this report typically states that there are just shy of 700,000 homeless individuals on a given night. Do you want to hear something that is deplorable? 12%, or just under 58,000 are VETERANS. In my opinion, that is about 12% too high as we owe more to our veterans who served and fought to keep this great nation free. But that is a subject for another discussion.

Right now let's focus on the entire situation. So we have a serious problem here. We should be concentrating on this issue.

It astounds me the amount of money that we send to other countries (http://www.factcheck.org/2011/03/funding-mosques-overseas/); especially countries that promote terrorism (http://online.wsj.com/articles/why-should-americans-fund-hamas-1401913021). In a nation that has a deficit that is beyond being out of control, we just continue to send billions of dollars to other countries when we have a plethora of trouble here that needs to be addressed. I have a plan to help the homeless and it would probably cost less money than shipping it out of the country.

Shipping Containers.

That's right, shipping containers. Those steel containers that are shipped across the world's oceans to be loaded onto trucks to be shipped coast to coast. Well, these are fast becoming an ideal solution to affordable and sturdy housing and home designers are being very creative.

Now shipping containers come in a variety of sizes and here is the thing; they range in price from free (when companies just want to upgrade stock) to around $5000. I have even seen links on the web that have new ones for as little as $850 if you want a smaller one. Shipping containers are being used to bury in the ground as apocalypse shelters to office buildings, shopping centers and beautiful homes.

So if we built neighborhoods with used shipping containers, even the smaller ones, and spent another $30,000 to finish each one, install a roof full of solar panels and make a simple little house of it would this not help our homeless? I am not saying that we need to make luxury housing. I feel like we need to do something to bring the homeless indoors. The very basic human need is to have a roof over your head. The little extra money to make them "green" makes them self-sustainable and affordable in the future. This is an example of recycling in it's general form. Let's re-use these containers for some good.

If we look at the $400 million sent to support Hamas each year and divide that by say... $35,000 to do one basic container home... we can create 11,428 homes. As I said, I may not have exact figures or even know how it is supposed to work, but I know that somehow I have a say in where my tax money goes and I think many will agree that $400 million each year solves a lot of domestic issues with homelessness right here in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

Additional Reading:
Could Shipping Containers Help End Homelessness? - Huffington Post