Café Inquiry (Online) – Homelessness

This event is held online. (Click the button to join the Zoom meeting.)

Homelessness has been a problem in the United States for many years. Solutions have been
elusive and in fact the number of homeless people has been skyrocketing recently.
At the next Cafe Inquiry, we will discuss the causes and effects of homelessness in the US and
throughout the world, and will look at policies and programs that can aggravate and/or
ameliorate the problem.
If you would like to explore the topic before the discussion, here is a smorgasbord of suggestions:

On the Ezra Klein Show podcast from July 19 2022, titled “Why is Housing so Expensive –
Particularly in Blue States”, Ezra Klein interviews Jenny Schuetz, the author of the book Fixer-
Upper: How to Repair America’s Broken Housing Systems”. Here is a link to the podcast and a
transcript on the NYT site. If you don’t subscribe to the New York Times and you have used up your monthly quota of free articles, you can access the podcast here.  Here is a brief article from the NYT morning newsletter.  A PDF is provided here if you can’t access the article directly. Here is a short article from “The Week” discussing homelessness. This 2016 article from the Atlantic examines approaches that have been tried or suggested. This website looks at the total homeless population by state, and this one looks at the rate of homelessness by state. To look at the scope of homelessness around the world, you can look at this Wikipedia page, “List of countries by Homeless Population”. Here is a brief report from I-SPHERE (Institute for Social Policy Housing, Equalities Research),“Ending Street Homelessness Globally”. And finally, here is one story about significant improvements in Finland in the battle against homelessness. Please join us for what we hope is a productive and educational discussion of this growing problem.

Café Inquiry starts with a short introduction of the day’s topic, followed by casual discussion.

This event is free and open to the public. Donations appreciated, but not expected.

Attendees are able to future propose topics which would align with Michigan Humanist’s purpose: from atheism, agnosticism, humanism, secularism, and freethinking to broader subjects in science and humanities, such as religion, philosophy, social issues, politics, evolution, morality, ethics, and psychology.

Café Inquiry (Grand Rapids) meets each month on the second and fourth Sunday.

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Michigan Humanists values the participation of all guests — requests for reasonable accommodation may be made by contacting the event host at least three days prior to the event.

Michigan Humanists expects all guests to engage in respectful discussion. Critiques on views and claims based on merit are allowed, but not attacks on individuals who hold other perspectives.

Any person engaging in disruptive behavior or harassment will be asked to leave, and may be banned from future events pending the severity of the action. Please speak to the event host or contact info@michiganhumanists.org if you feel these expectations are being violated.