The American Dream of a lasting career, affordable homeownership, a stable family and a dignified retirement at a reasonable age has been a staple of how we have defined ourselves, our nation and our culture since before James Truslow Adams first coined the term in his 1931 book The Epic of America, yet (to borrow his words) in this "land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement", that dream has grown further from reach for millions of Americans. For perhaps the first time in our nations history, we are growing poorer not simply as part of some recession or depression from which we will inevitably spring forth stronger and more vibrant than ever, but rather as part of a general trend of mismanagement, corruption and ineptitude which mocks our high ideals and sells short our noble achievements. Our careers have been traded in for the gig economy as our nation's industries have fallen by the wayside, our homes with the white picket fences have been traded in for basement apartments and cheap slums, "till death do we part" has seemingly grown the addendum of "or one of us gets bored" while somewhere forgetting "for better or worse" as our families fall to divorce in a national average of a mere 8.2 years, and our retirement pensions have been traded in for a social security program which will have gone bankrupt by 2034. The American Dream has faded away as we wake to some nightmare reality, and that bright city upon the hill seems ever so slightly less bright for it.

I, however, refuse in no uncertain terms to let this great nation go quietly into the night on my watch, and I would ask every red blooded American to join me in restoring this great nation not simply to it's former glory, but to a level of greatness which will pale all of our previous accomplishments by comparison. Our best days do not lie behind us, but rather directly ahead. We must remember that, and we must make the world remember that, too. Towards this end, our first step must be to pave the way for our future achievements by restoring our great economy to it's fullest glory. We must make every step a step forward, and every generation better than the last.

Admittedly, our nation is a far cry from where it needs to be, and there are a number of major issues which need to be fixed if we are to re-establish our economic standing. However, every problem has a solution. There is nothing which cannot be fixed, and our great nation is not called the "Land of Opportunity" for the certainty of it's downward mobility, nor the "Land of the Free" for it's citizenry's bondage to circumstance. Therefore, let me begin by laying out where we have erred, and follow that with how we might correct our errors.

First, there is the issue of our livelihoods. Millennials now make 20% less than boomers did at their age a mere two generations ago ("Millennials earn 20% less than Boomers did at same stage of life" USAtoday.com 13 January, 2017 Web Accessed 6 April, 2018), and a 2014 study found that roughly 34.8% of American Workers (roughly half of whom were under 30) make less than $10.10 per hour (DeSilver, Drew and Schwarzer, Steve. "Making more than minimum wage, but less than $10.10 an hour" Pew Research Center 5 November, 2014 Web Accessed 6 April, 2018). Further, the number of underemployed workers has risen sharply over recent years, and the effects of mandated benefit requirements on part-time workers has significantly increased as the Affordable Care Act forced employers to cut hours in order to avoid the added costs that these new regulations brought, and the new definition of how many hours qualified as "full-time". Add to this that the minimum wage has become such a joke that when a leading fast-food chain did a budget for their employees, it had to include getting another job as a major part of that budget, and it becomes clear that cutting hours can have devastating effects on the already destitute. However, any attempt to raise the minimum wage to a livable level inevitably leads first to massive job losses for low-income workers, followed by inflation dragging down working class Americans making more than minimum wage as well as those on fixed incomes while devaluating the purchasing power of those remaining minimum wage workers who still have their jobs to the point that no real net gain was made in their overall solvency or purchasing power. Further, attempts to educate ourselves out of this issue have merely left the most educated generation in American history with massive levels of unaffordable student debt.

Second, there is the issue of our failing economy. A recent study by the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University estimates that we've lost roughly 8.8 million manufacturing jobs and potential manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2010 alone (Hicks. Michael J. and Devaraj, Srikant. The Myth and the Reality of Manufacturing in America. Ball State University, 2015.), and we could be looking at losing over five times that many by jobs 2030 to automation alone not only in manufacturing, but even in other sectors traditionally considered safe from the ravages thereof (James Manyika, Susan Lund, Michael Chui, Jacques Bughin, Jonathan Woetzel, Parul Batra, Ryan Ko, and Saurabh Sanghvi. What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages. McKinsey Global Institute, 2017.). This is occurring at a time when we are already seeing massive changes in our economic landscape and the way people interact with business. All you need to do is walk around your local mall to see just how many store and restaurants are doing in our current economy. In fact, 2017 set an all-time record in store closings announcements in the United States, with more than 6,700 announced by October 2017 alone (Wattles, Jackie. "2017 just set the all-time record for store closings" money.cnn.com 25 October, 2017 Web Accessed 6 April 2018). This means many workers who don't lose their jobs to automation or foreign competition could still end up out of a job simply because it doesn't exist anymore.

Third, there is the issue of the rising cost of living. Despite the loss of millions of jobs out of our manufacturing sector, and the issue of wages in remaining jobs being stagnant at best, prices have continued to climb. This hurts not only working class Americans now, but also those working class heroes of past generations who should be enjoying a leisurely retirement after many hard years of loyal service to humanity. A perfect example of this is housing. The average size of new construction homes (and the associated price thereof) has risen relatively steadily since the 1920's to the point where the average new home constructed in 1924 was less than a third of the average size of homes built 90 years later in 2014, which is relatively consistent with homes built in 1934 and 1944, as well (Comen, Evan. "The Size of a Home the Year You Were Born" 247wallst.com 25 may 2016 Web Accessed 6 April 2016). This creates a footprint over 3x as large, requires over 3x as much material, and takes over 3x as much labor to build. All of that adds up to over 3x the cost, which someone has to pay, and (unfortunately enough) the average citizen does not earn 3x as much to go along with these added prices.

The effects of this are clear to see: the average age of the first-time homebuyer has risen to 32 (Bloom, Ester. "Here's how much money the average first-time homebuyer makes" CNBC.com 25 April, 2017 Web Accessed 7 April, 2018), Homeownership reached a near 50 year low in 2016 (Olick, Diana. "Millennials Cause Home Ownership to Drop to Its Lowest Level Since 1965" NBCnews.com 28 July, 2016 Web Accessed 7 April, 2018), the most common living arrangement for those between the ages of 18 to 34 is now living in their parent(s) home at 32.1% (Fry, Richard. "For First Time in Modern Era, Living With Parents Edges Out Other Living Arrangements for 18- to 34-Year-Olds" pewsocialtrends.org 24 May, 2016 Web Accessed 7 April, 2017), roughly one-third of American households were cost burdened (spent 30% or more on housing costs) and nearly 19 million of those spent more than 50% on housing costs (Vasel, Kathryn. "39 million households are paying more for housing than they can afford" money.cnn.com 16 June, 2017 Web Accessed 7 April, 2018), roughly 7.4 million Americans are at imminent risk of becoming homeless every year while and additional 2.5-3.5 million Americans actually do (Homelessness in America: Overview of Data and Causes. National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. Updated 2015).

Forth, there is the issue of Americans finances, which are really surprising given the issues of lower wage, less hours, career instability and a rising cost of living. According to a 2017 survey by GOBankingRates, 49% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and 61% of Americans (72% of those age 18-24) don't have enough emergency funds to cover 6 months of expenses. (Champion, Sydney. "Survey Finds Great Recession Aftershocks Are Still Rattling Americans" GoBankingRates.com 26 June, 2017 Web Accessed 7 April, 2018). Further, 39% of Americans reported having no money in savings, an additional 18% reported having less than $1,000.00 in savings, and 12% more reported having less than $5,000.00 in savings (Huddleston, Cameron. "More Than Half of Americans Have Less Than $1,000 in Savings in 2017" GoBankingRates.com 12 September, 2017 Web Accessed 7 April 2018). This indicates not only that 57% of Americans have less than $1,000.00 in savings and 69% of Americans have less than $5,000.00 in savings, although these figures are skewed much less favorably in younger demographics, but also that they are not making much headway to fix these issues since they are living paycheck to paycheck.

Older demographics are not doing much better, given that workers between the ages of 55 and 64 had a mere $135.000.00 in retirement funds (Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2015. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. 2016) at a time when the nation is trillions of dollars in debt, has massive budget deficits and is about to run out of social security funding (after 2014, it will pay out an estimated 79% of benefits from its revenues, and will reduce payments further over time). Worse still are findings by the Economic Policy Institute which suggest that this number is far from being indicative of the actual retirement preparedness of most Americans closing in on that age range. While their study found the mean retirement savings (the raw average) of those from ages 56 to 61 to be a mere $163,557.00, the median (the average of the most common range) is a dismal $17,000.00 (Elkins, Kathleen. "Here's how much the average American family has saved for retirement" cnbc.com 12 September, 2016 Web Accessed 7 April, 2018). Add to this that many parents are burden with the expense of subsidizing their adult offspring, which could be costing them an estimated average of $227,000.00 by retirement (Issa, Erin El. "Supporting Adult Kids May Cost Parents $227K in Retirement" nerdwallet.com 2017 Web Accessed 7 April 2018), and consider that with a 3% to 4% rate of withdraw, this is between $6,810.00 and $9,080.00 lost every year (or between roughly $130.60 and $174.14 lost every week) from their retirement income. This is clearly a troubling obstacle for our American Dream.

Fifth, there is the issue of dependency. All of these other issues end up on the shoulders of a society ill-equipped to handle them. Instead of making poverty livable or building pathways out of poverty, our efforts in fighting poverty have been focused primarily on subsidizing the poor out of poverty. This has several major issues. First, it will only continue to work so long as the subsidies continue to be paid out, making it a stopgap measure at best. Second, the money to fund these subsidies has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the public coffers. We either impoverish working Americans now through higher taxes (thereby growing the problem, rather than solving it), or we borrow against future taxpayers in the hope that they will be better able to bear this burden. This has proven to be an unfortunate misstep. Between 1964 and 2014, the war on poverty has cost American taxpayers more than 22 trillion dollars (Sheffield, Rachel and Rector, Robert. "The War on Poverty After 50 Years" The Heritage Foundation 15 September, 2014 Web Accessed 8 April, 2018). Keep in mind that the US Federal debt in 2014 was roughly 17.8 trillion dollars, which means without the war on poverty we could have had a multi-trillion dollar federal surplus. Worse still, the budget deficit for 2012 was 16.3 trillion dollars, and it was estimated to cost the US Federal Government roughly 6% of it's budget in interest. Additionally, in 2012 the federal government received 2.45 trillion dollars in tax revenues and spent 3.537 trillion dollars to cover its obligations. This means about 30% of what was spent was a deficit added to the national debt, and roughly 20% of what we could not afford to spend in 2012 came from paying just the interest on what we could not afford to spend before 2012. This has left us less able, not more, to afford to cover the economic failures of our past, a trend which largely looks to continue to grow. Third, it just doesn't work. Not only did the rate of decline before President Lyndon Johnson officially began the war on poverty in his 1964 State of the Union address not see any significant increase in reduction, it actually has not seen any kind of meaningful decrease of any kind since the early 1970's despite the continued increase in our expenditures on poverty reduction programs (Sheffield, Rachel and Rector, Robert. "The War on Poverty After 50 Years" The Heritage Foundation 15 September, 2014 Web Accessed 8 April, 2018). Further, approximately 52.2 million people (or 21.3 percent of the population) in the U.S. participated in major means-tested government assistance programs each month in 2012 ("21.3 Percent of U.S. Population Participates in Government Assistance Programs Each Month" Release Number: CB15-97 US Census Bureau 28 May, 2015 Web Accessed 8 April, 2018). If we are spending ever increasing amounts on poverty reduction programs, with tens of millions of citizens being serviced every month, what will happen when we run out of money to artificially subsidize people out of poverty, or at least subsidize them enough to make poverty livable? At the time I am writing this, the US National debt is over 21.1 trillion. This is not sustainable, it is pushing more and more working class Americans into poverty, and it is going to leave tens of millions of those Americans who can least afford it destabilized and without any safety net when it collapses. Clearly, something needs to be done.

This brings us to the fun part: How we crush all of these issues in a single, sweeping solution. What we need to do is build roughly 35,000,000 units of affordable micro-condominiums with a maximum final sales price within the equivalent of 5,000 labor hours worth of pay at the local minimum wage ($36,250.00 at $7.25/hr) over the course of the next 10 years. The number of units presented is based around allowing for the roughly 12 million American workers under between the ages of 18 and 30 who are making less than $10.10 per hour, with the remaining 23 million units to allow for impoverished retirees, American workers over 30, those making over $10.10 but who have other financial issues, individuals preferring simplified lifestyles, those on fixed incomes, those in need of employment, students, the working homeless, low-income vacation properties, investments such as Air B&B rental properties, and population expansion. Now, this might sound somewhat unorthodox, but bear with me. I will go through and break down how this solves each and every one of the five issues we've covered (with the exception of automation, which will be covered by ARIS-2: Our Friends the Robots).

Now, for my calculations I settled on a very basic design with a footprint of roughly 255 sq ft and an interior space of roughly 224 sq ft. before the walls dividing rooms are installed. This is divided into a 5'0" x 7'0" bathroom, a 8'8" x 7'0" bedroom and a 14'0" x 8'8" kitchen/living area. The individual designs used, however, are free to vary so long as they remain within the aforementioned price guidelines. Allowing between $100.00 and $125.00 per sq ft in construction costs brings our estimated building cost for these units to between $25,500.00 and $31,875.00 per unit, plus the land. However, since we are building these as condominiums, this reduces the price of land per unit and thereby improves the overall efficiency. If we assume the building has 12 units, this leaves between $52,500.00 and $129,000.00 for land. Areas where the overall price of land or the local costs of construction would not allow for construction within the aforementioned parameters can be funded within the framework of existing affordable housing subsidies to bring costs down, if needed.

In order for any of this to fully function as intended, however, there are three main stipulations. First, it must remain within the aforementioned price range. The average cost per unit of affordable housing in California was $260,000.00 in 2011, and even went as high as $334,000.00 in 2009 (Kimura, Donna. "California Releases Affordable Housing Cost Study" housingfinance.com 20 October, 2014 Web Accessed 8 April 2018). Again, this was per unit. This is not affordable, it is not useful, and it wastes massive amounts of the taxpayers money. Second, these must NOT be rental units, and there use thereas must be regulated tightly within the deed (at least within the first 5 to 7 years). The reason for this is quite simple: In order to build a pathway out of poverty, people need to be able to build equity. As a rental unit, they will be no better off when they leave then when they moved in. However, if one of these units was purchased for $35,000.00 with a ten year loan and a 20% down payment, by the time seven years was up (the average length of time a first-time homebuyer retains their home) they would have accrued roughly $26,600.00 in equity. This could be re-invested into their next property, allowing them to leap-frog into better and better properties without being constantly subsidized. Third, regulations must be put in place so units are only sold to those from the general area in which they were built so as to prevent the formation of low-income slums. This would create issues for those who enact these measures first while disservicing the who lived in those areas.

This brings us to the benefits. The first thing this project should do is create jobs, although this is more of a perk than it's full purpose. Assuming 35 million housing units built at between $25,500.00 and $31,875.00 gives this project an estimated total price tag of between $892,500,000,000.00 and $1,115,625,000,000.00. Broken up over 10 years leaves an average of $89.25 billion and $111.56 billion per year. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, for every one billion dollars spent on construction in 1980, an additional 24,000 full-time jobs were created (Ball, Robert. Employment created by construction expenditures. United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. 1981). Adjusting for inflation, we get roughly $3,021,735,436.89 per 24,000 new full-time jobs per year, or about $125,905.64 per full-time job per year. Admittedly, this is a very rough estimate, but it gives us a reasonable ballpark figure. Running this against our yearly average price tag gives us a rough average of between 708,864 and 886,080 new jobs created and sustained over a 10 year period. However, this figure will need to be further adjusted since we need to consider that the sales of 35 million homes will generate even more jobs through realtors, mortgage agents, insurance agents, legal consultants and so on, as well as for the overall economic empowerment and stimulation which will be covered later. However, the best part of this jobs stimulus is not simply the creation of jobs, but rather the fact that the market itself will bear the costs. The cost of building these units will be (at least primarily) funded by investors and refunded by the purchaser, so the cost of this job creation should not be a significant burden on the taxpayer as would be the case with other stimuli plans, like investments into roads and infrastructure. This would not require a massive and never-ending stream of tax revenues to be expended, and any money our nation puts into this should be made back with a very healthy profit once we begin to consider added tax revenues and decreased government dependency.

Second is the creation of a livable wage, which is one of the main reasons why we need to do this. An individual making the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour who works an average of 30 hours per week, 50 week per year would make $10,875.00 per year and have an averaged weekly take-home pay of roughly $178.79 per week ($208.56 minus $8.70 federal tax, $12.97 fica, $3.03 Medicare, and $5.07 state tax). Renting an apartment which costs $500.00 per month would eat up roughly 64.4% of their budget, leaving them severely cost burden with a mere $63.72 to cover all of their remaining expenses. However, with a $35,000.00 condo they could make a down payment of 20% and borrow the remaining $28,000 over a 10-year period for about $287.00 per month at 4.29% interest. Homeowners insurance has an average annual cost of roughly $3.50 per $1,000.00 of home value according to data from the Federal Reserve Bureau (Henshaw, Ashley. "What Is the Average Cost for Homeowners Insurance?" Homeguides.sfgate.com Web Accessed 8 April, 2018), which would come to roughly $122.50 annually for the unit. Using this as our baseline, the following budget could be estimated:
Income +$178.79/wk ($9,222.62/yr)
Mortgage -$66.05/wk ($3,444.00/yr)
Homeowners Insurance -$2.35/wk ($122.50/yr)
Utilities -$35.00/wk ($1,825.00/yr)*
Phone -$3.50/wk ($182.50/yr)
Food -$35.00/wk ($1,825.00/yr)
Sundries -$5.25/wk ($273.75/yr)
Wardrobe -$5.25/wk ($273.75/yr)
Laundry -$8.75/wk ($456.25/yr)
Transportation -$3.64/wk ($189.80/yr)
Remainder $14.00/wk ($730/yr)
*Tracfone with 3-month prepaid plan, including replacement phones

This creates a livable budget on $7.25 per hour while only working 1,500 hours per year with money left over before we even begin to consider tax return or subsidization through poverty reduction programs. This means that the model we are presenting would make the current federal minimum wage a livable wage, removing the entire debate about raising the minimum wage and thereby running into obstacles like inflation or the necessity of replacement by automation. Further, they automatically begin building equity in their home which they can use to improve their lives and upgrade their homes, and since the vast majority of even the bottom 30% of Americans are already making more than this, the vast majority of those Americans would be able to quit living paycheck to paycheck and start putting money away into savings. This brings us to our next point...

Third, there is the economic empowerment of the individual. This breaks down into four main areas: 1) An early start will become an option for young Americans regardless of their economic background. A 20% down payment on a $35,000.00 condo is only $7,000.00, which is small enough that it could easily be earned even by a high school student before graduation just by working part-time at the local burger joint. This will allow them to get started building a life and investing in their future rather than struggling to get by and getting into debt. 2) Acquired equity can be built up even without making any extra effort. If our aforementioned high school student bought a unit at 18, by the time he was 25 he could have around $26,600.00 in equity alone before we even begin to consider his savings. This would allow him to make a sizable down payment on a larger home around the same time that many Americans might start to seriously consider settling down and starting a family. However, even just maintaining at the current level and trading his $35,000.00 home in for a $54,000.00 home would allow him to build approximately an additional $19,600.00, giving him a whopping $46,200.00 plus his savings and investments by 32, the current average age most Americans buy their first home without equity to back them up. 3) Increased disposable income will allow young Americans not only the ability to stimulate the economy by purchasing what they need and want, but also to invest for their futures through savings, bonds, stocks, an education or even starting up their own business. 4) Moving out and becoming self-sufficient will ease the burden on their parents, who will be able to focus on paying off their debts and preparing for their own retirement. Again, I would refer to the aforementioned study by nerdwallet which found parents are losing about $227,000.00 in potential retirement funds, funds which could be much needed in their near futures. However, it isn't just the individuals who would benefit.

Forth, there is the economic stimulation this plan could create as aftershocks. One aspect of this is the housing market. Even though the first wave of condos are set to be finished within 10 year, we have to remember that by the end of the first 7 years or so we will begin to see people cashing out their equity in order to upgrade. This means a second wave of home sales as they move out of their old condos (passing them on to a new generation seeking independence and financial empowerment) and move into new bigger homes. This can repeat again beginning in another 7 years or so. This means more homes being sold, more home being maintained and more homes being built, all of which stimulate the economy. Another aspect of this would come from an increase in disposable income. Given consumer spending accounts for about 70% of gross-domestic-product growth (Udland, Myles. "YOU are the only thing not yet in recession" businessinsider.com 2 August, 2016 Web Accessed 15 April, 2018), increasing the disposable income of working class individuals by lowering their overall cost of living via housing costs will massively increase the effects this has on our economic growth. In fact, providing this level of increased disposable income to this level of American workers could go a long way towards reducing the number of store closings, and even reversing them, through the increased amount of money which could used to make purchases. This, in turn, will create even more jobs which provide their workers with even more disposable income which in turn will be used to make even more purchases in an ever-growing virtuous cycle which continually compounds it's own effects.

Fifth, there is the benefits garnered to retirees. By moving younger Americans out into their own self-sufficient homes, we would remove the need for their parents to take care of them into adulthood. This means they could focus on building their own retirements, which (again) means they would be able to add the aforementioned $227,000.00 to their retirement funds. Further, it would add an option for downsizing, allowing their excess equity to be likewise invested. This could allow for a significant increase in their overall income while also significantly reducing their overall housing and utility costs. Given the dismal median of $17,000.00 those 56 to 61 have in retirement savings, the failing social security system, the rising cost of medical care for the elderly, and the fact that roughly half of the homeless are over 50 (Scutti, Susan. "Half Of Homeless Population Is Over 50, Yet Social Services Not Aligned With Their Needs" medicaldaily.com 26 February, 2016 Web Accessed 15 April, 2018), this could prove to be of immense value to those already moving into their golden years. Further, it will provide the working class young a greatly enhanced ability to build equity, savings and investments long before they've ever reached their golden years.

Sixth, making even the income provided by a part-time minimum wage job into a livable income will greatly reduce the need for government intervention. Referring back to the amount we'd spent on the war on poverty relative to the federal debt, and the benefits of this fact become impossible to ignore, especially given how ineffectual other methods of poverty reduction have been. Money we don't have to spend on welfare programs can be used to pay off our debts, keep social security from failing, rebuild our infrastructure, improve our defense and create jobs. This reduction in poverty reduction expenditures will be further expanded by the increase in available jobs as well as through turning many remaining poverty reduction programs into the temporary measures they were meant to be. A good example of this would be subsidized housing. Currently, much of our subsidized housing expenditures go towards rentals which neither build the impoverished any way out of poverty nor have any end in sight. However, if that money were to be redirected into purchasing micro-condos, those subsidized would gain equity over time while the taxpayers funding them would only have to pay into these subsidies until the unit was paid off, after which point the taxpayers would be free and the subsidized individual would have a paid off home. This seems to be a much better solution than what we do now.

Seventh, there is the reduction in homelessness. According to some estimates, as much as 44% of the homeless population are employed (Myths & Facts about Homelessness. Council for the Homeless. Updated 2017). If even 75% of those members of the homeless who were employed were able to gain affordable micro-condos, the overall homeless population would be reduced by a third and the relative amount of funds available per individual would thereby be increased to 150% of their previous total without the need for an increase in expenditures. However, there is also the issue economic stimulation increasing financial and housing security, as well as the fact that many of the homeless are reaching an age where they could begin to draw some level of social security benefits. If this were to enable 50% of the overall homeless population to gain permanent housing, we would have effectively doubled available resources. If it enabled 75% of the homeless population (a high, but possible, figure) to gain permanent housing, we would have effectively quadrupled available resources for those who remained.

Now, to put this into perspective, California has on of the largest homeless populations in the United States, with San Francisco at the top of the list for Californian cities. In 2015, the total estimated homeless population was roughly 7,539 homeless individuals even after spending $275 million on homelessness(Spotswood, Beth. "2017 San Francisco 'Homeless Census' Reveals That Despite Numbers, Things Are Worse, Not Better" sfist.com 26 June, 2017 Web Accessed 15 April, 2018), breaking the previous record of $241 million spent on homeless services for the 2014-1015 fiscal year, including $39.7 million on shelters (Knight, Heather and Fagan, Kevin. "S.F. spends record $241 million on homeless, can’t track results" sfchronicle.com 5 February, 2016 Updated: 6 February, 2016 Web Accessed 15 April, 2018). $275 million dollars spread between 7,539 individuals comes to $36,476.98 per individual, although to be fair a large portion of this was likely spent on those not counted among the homeless due to being prevented from becoming homeless for now, which is consistent with roughly 2-3x as many people being in danger of being homeless as were actually homeless. However, funding requirements for shelters might provide a more accurate figure. Dividing $39.7 million between 7,539 homeless individuals comes to $5,265.95 per individual just for shelters. This doesn't even cover legal costs or medical expenses, which prove to be a very important point.

According to data collected by Green Doors, 1) homeless individuals use the emergency room an average of five times per year and the highest users visiting weekly, with each visit costing roughly $3,700, which comes to $18,500 spent per individual per year on average and $44,400 spent per year for the highest users of emergency departments, 2) people struggling with homelessness spend, on average, 3 nights per visit in the hospital which can cost over $9,000, 3) Not only does homelessness cause health problems, "homeless people have higher rates of chronic health problems than the general population. This takes the form of higher rates of illnesses such as high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, lung disease, and HIV disease" (Dr. Margot Kushel, Associate Professor of Medicine in Residence, UCSK/ SF General Hospital), 4) 80% of emergency room visits made by homeless individuals are for an illness which could have been treated with preventative care at a much lower cost, and 5) making stable housing available to the homeless decreases the number of visits they make to emergency departments by nearly 61%. From this , they concluded that health care costs could be reduced by 59%, emergency room costs could be decreased by 61%, and general inpatient hospitalizations could be reduced by 77%. (The Cost of Homelessness Facts. Green Doors.

This means this project could effectively reduce homelessness by a third to three quarters on its own, and allow the remaining portion to be lifted out of homelessness with temporary subsidies which are far less than what we already spend. Further, by doing so, we could effectively reduce the costs of healthcare for everyone by roughly three fifths.

From this, it is obvious that we can solve our nations problems. We can create livable wages. We can create affordable housing which provides a pathway to improved homeownership. We can rebuild our economy and reopen businesses. We can fix the problems facing retirees. We can be the generation that ends homelessness for good. We can solve the deficit. We can rebuild the American dream. We can build a better today, and a better tomorrow. We can, and we will. The poor will always be with us, but that does not mean poverty must be a life sentence, nor that it must be unbearable and crushing. We ARE the land of opportunity. It is not simply magic dirt which made this land great, but rather the unconquerable spirit of it's people. Together, we will achieve great things, and this will be the launch pad from which it all began.