by Nemari Morales

Instead of learning to walk and talk in 2007, it seems as though today’s teens should’ve been investing in a home. 

When passing by the Lancaster County Government Center on my way home from work, I noticed that the complex was lined with people on the outside. Looking closer to understand the situation, I was disheartened to see tents, carts and bags of groceries, sleeping bags, and unfortunate citizens attempting to escape the rain and cold with nowhere else to go. Immediately, my father commented, “This place is getting worse. Look how many people are over there.” As homelessness reaches record levels in America, a majority of people remain unaware – what is the root of our problem?

To get to the bottom of  what the homelessness crisis truly is, one must observe the pricing of rent in our city. Around 2010, the average rent cost for a 2-bedroom house in Lancaster, PA was typically $831/month. However, utilizing data from the same source, the cost of renting a 2-bedroom house has nearly doubled to $1440/month today. The housing market shows no sign of possibility for change, despite no assistance for renters. Minimum wage in 2010 for the state of Pennsylvania was $7.25/hour, and hasn’t changed since then, remaining the same as of 2024. Problematic as this situation is, it only seems to worsen.

According to Livingwage.mit.edu, the current living wage for someone in Pennsylvania without any children is $16.41/hour with a work week of 40 hours. That’s nearly double our current minimum wage, which, if made by a person who has one child, would be considered poverty wage. Pennsylvania’s current governor, Josh Shapiro, has called upon lawmakers to increase the minimum wage to at the very least, $15 hourly, but nothing has come of it as of 2024.

Homelessness still remains a problem within Pennsylvania, with around 15,000 people unsheltered on any given day. Shelters are packed to the brim with wait times that extend beyond weeks, many becoming far more selective as to who they allow, prioritizing children. This leaves many to risk being fined for sleeping on streets despite being given no other option. 

Anti-homeless architecture refers to alterations made to what are typically public spaces to prevent homeless people from being able to sleep there. This includes benches that have been segmented with armrests, making the act of lying down on them impossible, or spikes/grates upon pavement. With so many laws and regulations put into place to keep homeless people off the streets, one would be left to wonder what our city is doing to fix the problem of homelessness in general.

While visiting the page for the City of Lancaster and delving into their latest idea titled the “Interim Housing Strategy”, the problem they identified to be causing increasing homelessness as, “shortage of housing supply and generally low incomes in the City of Lancaster”. Supply of housing has also proven to be a problem within recent years as citizens speculate that the cause of increasing housing prices is a product of Wall Street and institutions like BlackRock buying out individual homes and increasing prices. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has predicted that corporations will own over 60% of all homes in 2030, dooming prices only to increase in the foreseeable future. 

The Interim Housing Project promises to focus on creating affordable housing for disenfranchised populations, who make up a disproportionate amount of low or moderate income households. It also plans to protect affordable housing units that are already within our city. Goals include creating 2000 new housing units(with at least 15% being affordable, or below 80% of the Area Median Income), protect and improve 1000 standing affordable housing units, and evaluate rental housing units in the city to ensure that at least 85% or above are in fair or good condition. 

Yet, the project’s site repeatedly states that it requires the efforts from multiple companies and contractors to fully go through with the process. In the meantime, we as citizens should show our full support for the cause and demonstrate our desire for  change. While figuring out what our community will do to tackle the issue individually, we must ensure we are taking the correct approach and seizing all opportunities possible.