In a February 2014 episode of 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper reported on US homelessness, explaining how it actually costs more to ignore the less fortunate than to provide them with free or heavily subsidized housing (some complex owners also donate some of their units for this cause). Cooper interviewed the Nashville faction’s project champion Becky Kanis who said, “a night in the hospital costs more than an average month’s rent… we are paying more, as taxpayers, to walk past that person on the street and do nothing, than we would be paying to just give them an apartment.”
The 100,000 Homes Campaign seeks out and surveys the homeless to find the most needy, then gives each of them their own apartment. The project has been a success as, once given housing, people generally find employment, make friends and partake in hobbies. This reflects a similar philosophy to that of the Grameen Bank, which empowers impoverished people through small investments called micro loans. People use these loans to fund long-term small business operations or to buy goods and then sell them at a margin on the street. When people are constantly wondering where their next meal is coming from or where they will sleep that night, they do not have the time or the resources to do what they’re capable of.
Returning to the 60 Minutes episode; Cooper makes an important point near the end of his report, mentioning how “a lot was achieved by getting people who don’t normally work together, such as outreach workers and private landlords, to focus on the city’s most desperate residents.”
The civic-minded owners of the condo complexes who voluntarily rent out units for little rent, economically speaking, are actually suffering a loss as a result of their philanthropy. Yet, as participating landlord Kirby Davis so eloquently put: “none of [the well-off] got to where [they] are without taking risks, so how about taking a risk for somebody else?”
Although it’s utopian to imagine a world where CEOs would consider anything but their shareholders, people like Davis show how powerful it can be when those at the top consider things other than the bottom line.