Policy Description

The issue under analysis is a policy by the New Yolk city Department of Homeless families. In analyzing the issue, I am taking the advocacy perspective since the aim is to influence decisions in the social institutions and systems. Homeless families in the city have been faced with challenges for long, and the city intends to make life easier for such families. Among the challenges is that for the parents to apply for housing, their children have to skip school since they have to appear physically for the initial interview. This affects the outcomes of these children in school. Homelessness in New Yolk City disrupts the lives of children in all many areas. Under the rules, if a family applies for shelter and then fails, the family has to undergo an initial interview the next time the same family applies and the children have to appear.

To curb the many disruptions in the lives of the children, the homeless department is introducing a new policy. Under the new policy, families that have applied for the shelter in the last 30 days and failed are not required to bring children to the initial interview. In addition, for children who are uniting with families after being in foster care, the reunion will occur in the family’s shelter and not in PATH as previously done. Harris (2016) argues that 47 % of the families who applies once end up applying again within 30 days. This means that children end up missing school once a month to travel to the Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing Center for the interview.

The main aim of the new policy is to eliminate many obstacles that hinder the learning of homeless children. Statistics from the homeless department show that 40% of the homeless students missed school at least once a month in the period 2014-2015 (Harris, 2016). Also, children in stable families but have been homeless in the past perform worse than their peers. The policy seeks to make the life of the children more bearable. Advocates for the policy hope that the children will not be required to go PATH at all in the future. The city will depend on the shelters and schools to assess the children instead of the face-to-face interview at PATH.

How the policy is offering support to the homeless families

The new policy is going to have a positive impact on homeless families. Family policies should supplement and support the functioning of families. This policy aims to improve the education capacities of homeless children. The best way to help the homeless families is through their children. It is common that the parents have no skills and thus hard to secure a job. However, if the children are well educated, they can take the family responsibilities in future and support their families. The policy is helping in eliminating any obstacles that prevent the children from performing well in schools.

Another family impact principle is that policy has to enhance a family capability to help itself and help others. Educating the homeless children as outlined above will enable them to have the necessary skills in future to secure jobs and support their families. Such children can have the capacity to support other homeless children. Offering money and shelter to the families will not have long lasting results without the necessary skills to maintain themselves. Education is the best tool against poverty. The government cannot eradicate poverty by offering money to the socially vulnerable rather by empowering the families to support themselves.

The policy has identified a vulnerable group in the society. The homeless families are very vulnerable more so the children. The homeless families are faced with extreme economic conditions and social needs. The lack of basic needs such as shelter, food, and access to quality education is just a tip of the challenges faced by the homeless families (Anderson & Koblinsky, 1995). These families require support from the government to be able to make life bearable. Failure to support these families makes the homeless problem become a serious and chronic problem. If the homeless children are not supported, and the cycle of homeless is passed on to them and their children, then the number of homeless families would increase with time making the problem serious with time. The policy is thus trying to prevent a future catastrophe from occurring by offering support to the homeless children.

This policy will strengthen family life for the homeless families. The lack of adequate education for the homeless children is the major reason the problem has been persistent in the city. The policy ensures that the needs of the children are assessed before being offered shelter. This makes sure that diversity of needs is respected. Though homeless, these families have different needs apart from the basic needs of food and shelter (Anderson & Koblinsky, 1995). The family impact principles have been integrated into the making of this policy. It has considered the most socially vulnerable group and is working to make life better for the homeless.

How the Policy Can Undermine Families

The main aim of the policy is to make sure children do not miss school as their parents try to acquire shelter. However, these changes in policy can undermine the children. First, the reason why children were required to visit the PATH for the first interview was for accurate assessment. These children have different needs, and it would be accurate if they were accessed from time to time. Many changes could occur in a 30 days period, but the policy is assuming that an assessment done 30 days ago is still viable. Though the department of homeless families plans to use social workers and teachers in conducting the initial assessments in future, they may not be the best-suited people to do so.  Such people may be biased in assessing the children based on other external factors. In my view, the PATH should have mobile offices in schools to assess the children. The assessment can be done on specific days in break time to ensure that homeless children attend school fully and accurate assessment occurs.

Some of the children who are stable but were homeless in the past have been seen to perform poorly as compared to their peers. This indicates that maximum school attendance may not be the complete answer. These children still have different other problems which affect their ability to perform well in school. It is significant for PATH to determine the social problems these children may be experiencing by employing professionals to assess the children before they are housed (Anderson & Koblinsky, 1995). The failure to appear in the initial interview may hinder this. The issue of family assessment should be taken seriously in curbing homelessness. Apart from good education, there are social problems still in play even after homeless families become stable. Socially, offering maximum education to the homeless children may solve the basic needs problem but not other social challenges. Accurate and professional assessment is required for such children to identify the social challenges they face.

Beneficial effects that might have been overlooked without family affect analysis

Without policy impact analysis, some of the beneficial impacts of the policy could be overlooked. In developing a family policy, the two major questions consider is how the policy will enhance the capacity of the families to support them and whether the policy will strengthen or hurt the families. Without family impact analysis, it would be hard to recognize that the policy will benefit the homeless children by offering them good education thus the capacity to help their families (Vanclay, 2003). There is also the benefit to the parents. Traveling to PATH with children where the families can wait for more than two days for the initial interview is challenging. With the children back at the shelters, the parents can thus work on acquiring housing while the children concentrate in school.

Harmful Effects That a Family Impact Analysis Might Help Avoid

This policy can have negative effects on the families if family impact analysis is not done. One of the negative effects that can be avoided with impact analysis is an inaccurate assessment. The policy looks to strengthen the families by helping them build capacity to support themselves. However, accurate assessment is very critical in making the policy a success. Apart from education, there are other social challenges faced by homeless children, which needs to be identified and integrated into the support systems. Besides, the homeless families do not face similar social problems.

Brief To Policy Makers

The homeless families are among the most vulnerable people in our society. There is a need to offer them support, but material support only cannot be enough. These families need the capacity to support them in the future if the problem is to be controlled. Failure to solve the homelessness issue will lead to catastrophic challenges for the city in the future. If the homeless children pass the status to their children, then the problem becomes bigger. Though the city has resources, material support to the families is not the answer. The answer is installing capacity in these children so that they can support their families in the future. However, education is just but a step in building capacity. There are other methods for consideration.

It is agreeable that the policy will go a long way in making sure that children spend maximum time learning. However, there is the concern of children in stable families that were previously homeless performing poorly in school. This shows that there are other challenges faced by such children even after they acquire basic needs such as shelter and food (Vanclay, 2003). The policy seeks to limit children from traveling with their parents to PATH for an initial interview. However, the initial interview assesses the families for the challenges they are facing. It is significant in identifying the several challenges a family is facing. If the first assessment is not accurately, then not everything else after that will not is accurate. It is understandable that this aims to increase class attendance for the children, but policymakers might take into account the fact that the children might not perform well even after attending all the lessons. Compromising assessment for class attendance might not be the best thing to do. In a period of 30 days, a lot can change in the life of homeless families. The 30 days given to the children may be long. In addition, after 30 days, families applying for shelter will still have to come with the children. Only 47% of the families end up applying before the 30 days period is over. The other 53 % will thus have to bring their children for the initial interview.

The viability of this policy in empowering the homeless families is questionable. Compromising the assessment of the 47% of the families who apply before the 30days grace period and forgetting about the 53 % of the families who apply after 30 days is not the best policy. Policy makers will raise issues such as why the policy is considering the interests of 47% of the families and not the 53 %, which is higher. Why is it that the policy does not benefit all the homeless children in the city? From a family perspective, attending school is not the whole answer; there are capacity-building activities that are considerable. The PATH can have mobile assessment centers in schools where children can be assessed during break time by professionals. It is significant to determine the specific challenges for specific children for a maximum capacity building.

References

Anderson, E. A., & Koblinsky, S. A. (1995). Homeless policy: The need to speak to families. Family Relations, 13-18.

Harris, E. A. (2016, September 01). Under New Policy for Homeless Families, Children Can Miss Less School. Retrieved October 31, 2016, from http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/02/nyregion/new-york-homeless-families-path-policy.html?rref=collection/timestopic/Families and Family Life&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=collection&_r=0&referer=http://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/families-and-family-life

Vanclay, F. (2003). International principles for social impact assessment. Impact assessment and project appraisal, 21(1), 5-12.

 
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