Coalition for the homeless_Sungmin Kim
Coalition for the homeless is an activist organization that provides various services to the homeless. They provide foods, shelter, job opportunities and etc. However, none of those services make any money. They mainly get their funding by donation which is presumably limited. Their mission statement says "Every New Yorker deserves a home." However, I want to change that a little bit and say "Every New Yorker deserves to earn a home."
The number of homeless people has been consistently rising. With the Covid-19, the number is only expected to rise. Also, I noticed two characteristics of the homeless. The first one is that they tend to congregate on certain points on certain alleyways and certain corners of the city. The second one is that they tend to be immobile. They tend to stay in one place all day.
I am new to New York city. It has been about two weeks since I have been here. I noticed that there are not many open, public spaces around. Even though there are huge open spaces like Central Park or Highline park, there are very few small, local-friendly, intimate open, public spaces where pedestrians can just enjoy without having to visit or make a reservation. Even if there are, many of them are not taken care of, broken down, and unattended. That is probably because there are very few or no people to take care of them. Like the Broken Window Theory, a small, broken bench or window can make the whole block or neighborhood undesirable.
What I am thinking right now is to come up with a grid(regular or irregular) disposition of the homeless. They can be designated or signed to a specific corner or street, so they do not congregate and make undesirable atmosphere. In addition, they are responsible for a certain area or block like a lighthouse taking care of its perimeter. So that the pedestrians can feel safe when passing by. Also, while they are provided with an one-man shelter to stay or sleep in, the shelter is attached to public properties like benches, water fountains, bicycle stand, telephone booth and so on. These public properties are then taken care of by the designated homeless person. So that they are no longer broken, smelly, dirty and something that no one ever uses.
