If you or someone you know wants to be a part of solving the homeless crisis in our country, shoot me an email at majprag@gmail.com
Operation Homerun
Objective: Develop infrastructure to rehabilitate homeless persons into becoming contributing members of society by providing housing, vocational training, education, healthcare, mental health services, grooming, and other necessary services in a replicable, standardized facility.
Across the United States of America, every major metropolitan city is plagued by homelessness. Cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco are inundated with the homeless, leading to higher crime rates, public defecation, higher rates of disease and mental illness, lower property values, and higher taxes to support ineffective programs.
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2019 AHAR (Annual Homeless Assessment Report) accounted for 567,715 homeless people. That’s over half a million Americans living in extreme poverty dependent on government programs to survive. Not only is this a human issue, it is a sociopolitical problem.
Thanks to megalithic corporations like Amazon and Walmart, the American mall has become an antiquated method to do your shopping. When COVID-19 struck, much of the damage done could no longer be fixed. As a result many malls across the United States have been forced to close their doors and declare bankruptcy, leaving behind large structures without tenants to pay rent and operate businesses.
These empty complexes can serve a new, potentially better purpose. Why not retrofit and utilize the existing store fronts as various services to rehabilitate homeless? The mall would no longer be a place of commerce, but instead a social service aimed at bringing homeless people out of poverty and back into society.
Food Services: Convert food courts into mess halls with dining areas
Housing: Carve up and divide retired department stores into individual housing units, accommodating hundreds in each mall
Security: Utilize existing security structures to enforce law, order, and compliance with facility policies; this would create jobs hiring local law enforcement and security contractors
Healthcare and Mental Health Services: Employ qualified doctors, nurses, and social workers to provide much needed support to combat mental illness and physical ailments; this includes substance abuse counselors and therapies aimed at addressing underlying causes of addiction and encouraging healthy behavior
Grooming: Many malls already have barbershops and salons in place, just add the people to cut some hair and help make people look more presentable
Education: Employ education staff with an accredited GED program
Vocational Training: Provide training for trades to equip people with skills for employment
Solution:
- Secure funding to purchase and retrofit vacated shopping malls in or around a large metropolitan city
- Employ and staff facilities with qualified experts, social workers, and law enforcement
- Gather willing homeless persons in a facility for rehabilitation and reintegration into society
Taking on a project like this requires a high degree of bandwidth and financial resources that I alone do not possess. I believe that with proper backing from philanthropists, grants, and state funding, this project can be made real.
Hypothetically, if this project had even a 10% success rate at raising people out of homelessness with a test group of 5000, that’s 500 people off the street and on the path to becoming contributing members of society. If this method proved effective, it has the potential to reduce our country’s homeless population and add thousands (maybe even tens of thousands) of new workers.
Ideally, connecting with a figure like Elon Musk could be mutually beneficial. If he were to provide funding and create employment opportunities for those who successfully rehabilitate, he would have access to hundreds of potential new employees.
If you believe that you can connect me with people to make this project happen, please reach out to me via email at majprag@gmail.com
Read my mind. 