Letter: The Only True Cure for Homelessness is Housing
By: Beth Olson, Fargo-Moorhead Coalition to End Homelessness
September 3, 2024
Homelessness has reached crisis levels nationwide, increasing more than 12% since last year, with a record-breaking number of people living unsheltered. In response, cities across the country are implementing ordinances aimed at managing encampments.
Homelessness is a complex problem with a remarkably straightforward solution: housing.
At the Fargo-Moorhead Coalition to End Homelessness, we do not support any law that criminalizes homelessness. We believe the city of Fargo’s proposed ordinance and resolution related to camping on public property have been misunderstood. They do not ban camping entirely; rather, they ban unsafe behaviors such as threats or acts of violence. By adhering to the outlined expectations for health and safety, the ordinance and resolution actually protect the rights of our unhoused neighbors to survive outside until a better option is available.
Most importantly, the resolution empowers the city of Fargo and Public Health’s outreach teams to continue visiting camps daily, providing lifesaving supports to our unhoused neighbors with the goal of helping them end their homelessness permanently.
We believe that public areas should feel safe to everyone—housed and unhoused. Our neighbors experiencing homelessness are not causing a safety crisis. They are surviving a safety crisis. It is not safe to undergo dialysis while living in a tent by the river. It is not safe to carry everything you hold dear in a backpack. And it is certainly not safe to sleep in a business’s doorway because that is the only structure protecting you from heatstroke or frostbite.
People fall into homelessness for various reasons—both interpersonal and systemic. According to a 2021 study from the University of Chicago, over half of people residing in shelters are employed. Rent increases of just $100 have been linked to a 9% rise in homelessness. In North Dakota, an Indigenous person is seven times more likely than a white person to experience homelessness.
We thank city officials for putting together this ordinance and resolution that prioritizes safety for all and ensures our unhoused neighbors can access the help they need to end their homelessness. Our community is at a crossroads: we can watch homelessness numbers continue to rise or stop it in its tracks with evidence-based practices, like Housing First , which have proven successful in other communities. In fact, we have already seen success with it here, but on a small scale.
With shelters struggling to stay open and increasingly endangered funding for housing programs, now is the time to prioritize ending homelessness. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the many agencies within our FM Coalition to End Homelessness, there are only 40 people along the river and not 200; however, over 1,000 people are experiencing homelessness on any given night in the Fargo-Moorhead area, and a coordinated community response is urgently needed.
It is entirely realistic for Fargo-Moorhead to take Housing First to scale and become the next community to end homelessness, united by our shared vision of safety and dignity for all our neighbors. If we do nothing, it’s not a question of whether larger encampments will develop, but at what scale. The only true cure for homelessness is housing. Let’s choose the path that ensures everyone in Fargo has a safe place to call home.
Beth Olson is a board member of the Fargo-Moorhead Coalition to End Homelessness and housing navigation program director at Presentation Partners in Housing.