The Problem With Homelessness

Many of your customers are homeless.  That might come as a surprise to some of you.  It is estimated that 3.5 million people in America are homeless.  Of that, 23% are children.  770,000 homeless children are currently enrolled in the public school system.  These are astonishing figures and we see many homeless families in the self-storage business (more information at http://www.nationalhomeless.org). Self-storage laws state that it is illegal to reside in a storage facility.  The main reasons are that it is not safe for the person living inside and it is also a liability to the owner.  The statistics are overwhelming at best and when we are faced with this situation, we must respond quickly.  What is the best way to respond?

First of all, we are all human beings and deserve the right to be treated with respect despite our economic situation.  It is not up to us to judge who is at fault for their situation. Unless we have walked in their shoes, many people will never know the stigma that accompanies being homeless.  Most of the time you won't know a customer is homeless.  In the event someone shares this information with you, as a storage facility, you can't really offer much to them aside from a free unit (which I am definitely not suggesting anyone should do).  Keeping this in mind, this is the first step in making certain your boundaries are always established from the beginning.  More often than not, someone renting a unit is in a hotel or a shelter and drawing a small monthly income from somewhere which enables them to pay their unit rental bill.  I have customers who have been paying on time for months and I am just finding out they have been in this situation the entire time.

Many of these families have at least one working parent. The majority of the time they have children and are in a hotel. But, in most cases, they don't have enough income to afford to get out of the situation they are in, which is living in a tiny hotel room.  They need the money for the deposit and after a credit check, they will probably need more than that. Each paycheck drains their income to go towards a hotel room so they are unable to save for a deposit for a rental.  If there is a large family, there are occupancy laws in many cities that say six people in a two bedroom is too many.  Therefore, renting an apartment that is large enough seems like a far off and distant dream.  Plus, the waiting list for HUD and Section 8 housing is generally very long, if they even qualify.  So, what can we, as a business, do to help?

During one conversation with a homeless family, I came up with three possible solutions that no one had even shared with them during this entire time. There are currently three programs that are not widely advertised in this area whose main priority is to get people off of the streets and out of hotels and into permanent housing.  When I gave our customer the information (it took me less than one minute to look up the names and numbers) she was so glad there was a possible light at the end of the tunnel.  After this, I realized that if there is a need, I need to make solutions available to those our customers who have a need.  Not only is it a part of good customer service practices to go above and beyond the call of duty, it's also being a good humanitarian.

In the United States, there is an available program that was put into place two years ago called Rapid Rehousing.  It is available in every state (sometimes funding is limited in some areas but it always helps to send someone to the one in your city).  You can easily go to a search engine (Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, etc) and type in rapid rehousing and your city's name.  In our instance, it is Rapid Rehousing Kansas City.  The next step is to look through the first few results.  Rapid Rehousing is a program that is actually not a "stand alone" entity.  Non-profits in your area integrate the program within their organization and then you can apply through them.  Therefore, you will not have a direct number Rapid Rehousing. but instead it will be a local non-profit organization dedicated to helping the homeless. Calling these organizations (there is generally more than one, tell your customer to call them all) will open the door (generally) to a wide array of homeless prevention programs available in the city either through their organization or others.


Another good resource is through the HUD web site.  It is: http://www.hudhre.info/index.cfm?do=viewLookingAssistance

Make certain you bookmark this site so you can easily open it when a customer comes in who is in need.  It also gives resources for food assistance, medical insurance and more.  You can also give them information if they are at risk to become homeless.

Understandably, we don't have all the time in the world when we are at work, especially on very busy days.  So, you can also create a sheet with these links as well as phone numbers they can call.  You can have those ready to either discreetly hand to someone in need or you can even leave them setting out for people to take.  I like things neat, tidy and professional, so my idea would be a small pamphlet in a brochure holder.  In the long run, you are giving adults and children a chance to lead normal lives, giving back to the economy (more money in pockets means more into retail) and helping the nation as a whole.  The ROI (return on investment) is a much bigger picture than you may ever realize.  Until next time, thanks and have a great day!



Michelle Armstrong
Manager
Star Storage
816-765-7300