Throughout this course, we have approached the issues of poverty and homelessness progressively. First, we explored the data and economic systems that produce homelessness, studied the first hand experiences, analyzed the U. S’s unproductive governmental and private approaches to it, and finally reviewed solutions. Of the effective solutions we studied, we saw few examples of them being employed domestically. Among the best was an organization on the east coast. They did not fully embrace the concepts of housing first; rather they adapted the existing progressive housing model to offer services to more people on the bottom end and offer obtainable permanent housing at the top.

While studying an organization that was employing more efficacious approaches to reducing homelessness was encouraging, their finances weren’t. Lacking any committed government support, this private NGO offered its services at a $180,000 annual deficit with no stated plan for making up the difference. Admittedly, the data available to us on these numbers was scarce, but the message was clear. If one of the most successful models of homeless aid in the U.S ran on a $180,000 deficit to serve a proportionally small amount of the population, then private solutions to homeless are likely not enough to solve this problem. While not a revolutionary conclusion, understanding that a problem of this scale can’t be solved by private organizations funded by inconsistent tax dollars and small, private donations is an important realization. This gives us another tool to argue against rhetoric that say that this is an issue for NGO’s and not for government.