REDUCING THE RATE OF HOMELESSNESS

REDUCING THE RATE OF HOMELESSNESS As far as I know, there is no legal or technical definition of “homelessness” here in our country. Along with that idea, it appears that there is also no legal or technical definition of what a “home” is, or what it should be. Given the lack of definition, it would be very difficult to determine who is “homeless” or who is not. Is someone who lives in a shanty “homeless” or not? Of course, we need not go into discussing the technicality of what is a “home”, and what is a “house”. Let us just agree that a “house” is a physical structure upon which we can build a “home”. Now that we agree on that, we could also agree that a “homeless” person is someone who does not have a “house” to stay in, regardless of whether he or she is the owner, or he or she is just a tenant. Now that we are done with the definitions, my next question is, how is the government setting its targets for the so-called “housing backlog”? Is the government basing it on the number of “homeless” persons? If the answer is yes, how is the government gathering the data for that? First things first, I think that the government should first build a database of “homeless” persons, before it could set targets for the “housing backlog”. I also think that the data gathering should start at the LGU level, so that the mayors will know who are “homeless” among them. IKE SENERES/1-12-24