In the past five years, we’ve seen rent prices rise by nearly twenty percent in some major cities across the United States, causing more than one out of every ten families to be evicted from their homes and resulting in the growing issue of homelessness in this country.
If you haven’t been directly impacted by this crisis, there’s a good chance that you know someone who has. This financial crisis, caused by supply chain issues, inflation, and poor regulation of landlords in many states, affects us all whether we realize it or not.
How It Affects Our Bottom Dollar
Businesses experience a bottom dollar impact when citizens can’t afford to pay for goods or services. When people lose their homes or struggle to pay rent, they often have to cut back on everyday expenses like food. The resulting downward spiral of a financial crisis quickly impacts nearby businesses because consumers are forced to spend less money on food at grocery stores.
When a person experiences homelessness, they are more likely to seek aid from public shelters and government-run programs—and those costs trickle down through society as well. Whether your business is directly impacted by rent prices or not, you can be sure that rising rent prices will affect your bottom dollar in some way.
The Cost of Eviction
According to Eviction Lab, there have been more than 20,000 eviction filings in the last two years. Rising rent costs have caused people to leave their homes for a variety of reasons including buying new homes in better neighborhoods; home improvements such as new roofs or inability to pay property tax; or landlords wanting to raise rents based on property value trends. Our bottom dollar has been affected by these changes over time that is seemingly irreversible without drastically changing current rental laws and subsidies.
A growing financial crisis seems inevitable if we do not make drastic changes to how we handle housing in America.
What To Do About Rising Costs
This increase in rent has a ripple effect. When rent prices rise dramatically over a short period of time, evictions become commonplace. Evicted families are then transitioned into homeless shelters which are overwhelmed with a growing financial crisis. The price of groceries also increases to cover rising costs; citizens must sacrifice quality for quantity because their dollars will go farther at stores that specialize in bulk goods. Ultimately, everyone is affected by rising rent costs and homelessness.
In America, homelessness is becoming a financial crisis. Rising rent costs in metropolitan areas have left a growing percentage of Americans without access to affordable housing options. Though most estimates put transitional homelessness at about 10% of all US homeless populations, housing advocacy groups are increasing their efforts to curb its growth as many poor renters are being affected by rising costs which quickly make even subsidized rentals unaffordable when rent is due every month.
In fact, eviction records show that having affordable housing can help you keep your job! If you’re one of those people who has been directly impacted by the rising cost of homelessness, there are steps you can take to protect yourself from future financial crises.
Protect Yourself from Future Financial Crisis
There are steps you can take to protect yourself from future financial crisis: Pay off credit card debt. Reduce your spending so that you aren’t always trying to catch up with payments. Work out a monthly budget and look for ways to save money on essentials, like groceries or entertainment. If you own a home try refinancing if interest rates drop—it could save thousands of dollars over time.
Take some time to understand how the rising cost of homelessness works and what might be causing it. Then learn how the rising cost of homelessness will affect your bottom dollar (and everyone else’s). Consider taking actionable steps toward finding solutions for the rising cost of homelessness in your area or ways to prevent such crises from affecting others around you.
This is a topic that isn’t going away; if anything, rising rent cost is growing into an even bigger problem in America. Instead of fighting about politics or our differences we should unite to help those who are hurting.
How To Minimize your Impact
Even if you aren’t struggling financially, we all play a role in minimizing our impact on this financial crisis as we make decisions in big-box stores on everyday items like food, clothing, toys, and electronics. In fact, every dollar spent has an impact on homeless families and individuals across America.
So what does your bottom dollar look like? How do you minimize your impact? And how do you know where to start?
The first step is educating yourself about which companies are responsible for making a difference by using their purchasing power to help those in need. What can you do with your bottom dollar? You can use your voice to let companies know that they should continue doing good work! We also recommend shopping at thrift stores or buying secondhand goods whenever possible, because not only will you be reducing waste and saving money, but you'll also be giving back to people in need.
Companies That Support/ Donate To The Bautista Project
There are a number of companies that support the initiatives of The Bautista Project. Here are a few of them:
Caliber Home Loans - They have continued to support a number of our programs from sponsoring the Belonging Blanket program to employment opportunities, and sending out Belonging Boxes to homeless veterans throughout the US.
Creative Bay - Providing free services and financial support
Feeding Tampa Bay - We’ve partnered together to bring awareness to military food insecurity and provide food directly to our military and veteran families in the Hillsborough area. More information coming soon!
Publix - Donate bread for distribution within our homeless and food insecure community weekly
Tampa Bay Lightning
4imprint - Donate bags that our community members can store their possessions in
Join this amazing list of companies supporting The Bautista Project by learning more by becoming a sponsor.
Our needs change monthly. When donating a large amount of one resource please first reach out to make sure it is needed, or visit our regularly updated Amazon Wishlist.
What We Can All Do
Wondering what you can do as an individual to fight financial crisis at all levels?
Vote on local officials that help those in need.
Donate to local organizations (or better yet volunteer).
Purchase ethically sourced items that don’t support companies that profit from other people's struggles.
Be mindful of your consumption habits and make ethical decisions when buying products.
Let’s take care of each other!
If you are interested in learning more about rising rent prices, eviction, and transitional homelessness, stay tuned! There’s more info coming.
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