Empowering Change, Ending Homelessness

We lock our doors and roll up the windows as we drive past the person on the side of the street; we ignore it, disassociate, and pretend it does not exist. Other times, we awkwardly fumble for loose change while someone holds up a sign when we’re stopped at a traffic light. As the light turns green, we are relieved as we speed off.

The moment we face the uncomfortable fact, people live and die on the streets; it forces us to take a moment and come to the realization that maybe we're not as virtuous as we once thought. Our humanity has limitations, and these minor inconveniences make us squirm while we are forced to stare our broken society in the face.

The government failed to stop synthetic opioids from streaming into the United States making it one of the lowest priced deadly street substances available. Fentanyl-related deaths in 2023 were over 150 per day, making it one of the top causes of death in the US following heart disease and cancer.

If our politicians aren’t willing to stem the flow of illegal substances, then we must ask if they’ve chosen to make it the solution. Similar to the movie Logans Run, a dystopian future where the society collectively uses euthanasia for population control. It can be argued that by ignoring this public health epidemic then we condone it.

Vulnerable communities and individuals without stable housing are particularly at risk. One poor decision away from falling into a hole that is almost impossible to climb out of alone. Survival becomes the focus and any type of escape good or bad becomes welcomed.

What initially was an eviction notice turns into living in a car while they find a job. Soon it becomes hopelessness when they don’t have an address to put down on the job application. Interviews are stressful enough in the most perfect situation, but the thought of showing up without a shower and the nervous system in fight or flight mode is like climbing Mount Everest without an oxygen tank.

There are more unhoused individuals than our social services can support. Unfortunately, solutions have been implemented that have given the opposite effect of what they should do. Instead of rehabilitation and support many individual dealing with substance addiction, mental health crises, and displacement have been given only self medicating enablement.

The solution and support strategy that are needed are as unique as the individual itself. Without a massive social service solution, we cannot hope to solve this problem. Bridging the gap should be provided by a trained professional case managers and the assistance of artificial intelligence running a large language model created from humanities collective care knowledge.

Creating a person-centered approach, focusing on the individual rather than the issues alone can provide a multidisciplinary care plan that includes access to temporary housing, therapy, addiction specialists, social workers and medical professionals.

Artificial intelligence will be a vital resource to social service infrastructure by creating tailored and personalized support plans that provide direct solutions for the individual’s challenges. Crisis intervention can have an improved success rate by real time plan adjustments. Adjusting to the individuals dynamic state can help prevent relapse and increase success rates.

Addressing the root cause of the un-housed individual issues within a real time dynamic care plan prevents someone from falling through the cracks. Whether that cause is self-inflicted or by unfortunate circumstances, a compassionate society helps those in need.

Everyone likes to think that they are immune to addiction, houseless insecurity and mental health crisis, but the reality is, we are all just one bad choice away from a domino effect they can put any individual into a circumstance that is hard to recover from.

You may find that as you had once rolled up the window or pretended not to hear the pleas of someone asking for money that you wake up one day to find that you are the one being ignored.