Introduction
Homelessness remains on top of the list among the major problems that urban society is faced with, and this has had a disproportionate impact on the African American community in most large cities in the United States. With the homeless populations in urban areas growing in numbers, cities are faced with important decisions, like what is the role of social enterprises in addressing this problem, especially those marginalized in the community. Social enterprises started having their position during the period because people saw that they were addressing not only economic issues but also social issues, especially those that relate to social welfare and community cohesion. A topic of special interest amongst researchers is the problem of African Americans’ homelessness, which is commonly caused by deep-rooted socioeconomic structures—e.g. historical discrimination, systemic inequality, and lack of resources—as well as the social enterprises that are seen as promising processes to solve it. The fact that this research is based on a specific question, i.e., how social enterprises within the African American community affect the homelessness situation, underlines my thesis that these social enterprises play a crucial role by not only facilitating community engagement but also creating job opportunities and necessary social service provision towards the stability and life-changing of these people that are victims of homelessness.
Literature Review: One vital way social enterprises contribute to eradicating homelessness is through the provision of affordable and sustainable housing solutions.
Innovative Housing Solutions
Prasun Kumar’s million-brick approach is an incredible study of how a social enterprise can use innovative housing alternatives instead of homelessness. The study detailed in “From Vision to Action: “The Way Social Business Works in Eradicating Homelessness” depicts actions necessary for an entrepreneur to develop viable and sustainable housing solutions, and one remarkable achievement is the WinterHYDE tent, which is a life-saving, fully insulated and lightweight tent for homeless people in extreme weather states particularly families (Kumar, 2020). It signifies an underlying current in the social enterprise which works towards unveiling a housing model peculiar to the community by building on its strengths and capacities, thereby offering an innovative means to address the specified need and translating this into an evidence-based response to the problem.
Financing Models
The economic viability of social entrepreneurs, especially those who intend to cater to the issue of homelessness, critically depends on their financing approaches. Brown’s article (2021), “Capacity Financing Models for Social Enterprises Combating Homelessness”, discusses various financial schemes these entrepreneurs can use for funding. For instance, through mechanisms like social impact bonds, crowdfunding, and impact investing, capital infusion complements and provides a solid basis for the long-term sustainability of such endeavours. These creative financial solutions are often considered essential building blocks and foundations of strategies that allow social enterprises to implement transition-level interventions, i.e. providing permanent housing solutions, assisting with living skills, and offering education and job training opportunities, enabling the long-term stability of homeless individuals.
Also, those financial models are equally important in aligning investors’ financial motivation with the social objectives of social enterprises that mission the social establishment of the same. By incorporating investor financial goals as social objectives, these models bring community-based funding, making it continuous for these projects. One of the major similarities among all the models is that they must ensure that their investments translate directly to social impact, thus making the programs more effective and sustainable in resolving homelessness problems. As such financing models are doing well, a shift has occurred to ensure there is a correlation between economic and social impact, resulting in the continuous betterment of society.
Impact Evaluation
Measuring the influence of homelessness on social enterprises’ outcomes is significant as it helps to understand the approach’s effectiveness and identify areas worth improving. Martinez and Lee (2017) provide a systematic review of various programs targeted at homeless individuals in “Impact Evaluation of Social Enterprise Programs for Homeless Individuals: Hence, the study title “The Relationship between Social Enterprise and Homelessness: A Systematic Review” summarizes their results, whereby the most remarkable changes in the employment rate, accommodation stability, and mental welfare of the participants were among the most exciting findings that support the idea that social enterprises can be very instrumental in the effort to improve the plight of the homeless. Nevertheless, their analysis still states that this needs to be supplemented by more rigorous and long-term studies to understand what is responsible for the programs attaining these outcomes.
Through Public-Private and Social Partnerships.
When dealing with the issue of homelessness, the partnership between different government agencies and social enterprises can be the key factor in improving the efficiency of the impactful efforts. Smith and Jones (2018) explore this dynamic in “Collaborative Approaches to Addressing Homelessness: This chapter under the topic “Lessons Learned from Partnerships between Social Enterprises and Government Agencies” presents some case studies where collaborative attempts not only succeeded by bringing forth new and inventive policies but also resulted in improved distribution of resources of all kinds to the benefit of the homeless population. This is because this cooperation not only mobilizes government support but also reflects the idea’s popularity and expands social enterprises’ networks, leading to a more coordinated way of solving the homelessness problem.
Comprehensive Overviews
Finally, Johnson (2019), in “The Role of Social Enterprises in Addressing Homelessness: The article “Comprehensive Review”, is a general one that shows a crosscut of social enterprise practices with respect to homelessness. The review of Johnson calls for more than community work towards defeating homelessness. They include providing services directly to the victims and policy influencing the success of the whole program. It strives to connect different pieces of social enterprise activities, putting together a complete picture of how everything is being done, with the challenges faced and the positive outcomes all on one platform.
Methods
This research design utilized non-participant observation and the adult interview analysis in a structured face-to-face setting. This approach probed into social enterprises’ influence on the African-American community’s homeless situation. The duration of the observational research took two weeks. These places involved social enterprise centres, community centres, and a common town area where homeless accumulate frequently. The observations were made at different times of the day to cover the major activities and interactions alongside those shown in the flow of connections between people with low incomes and social enterprises. Using this approach, the information was so eloquently narrated that it depicted social enterprises’ in-depth daily realities and base functioning. A careful and detailed description and reflection note-writing were employed at this stage to comprehend these private companies’ relationship and strategy links. The notes were valuable, like putting oil on my wheel, enabling me to have a wider range to judge the correctness of the social enterprise’s role in addressing homelessness and praising its short and long-term benefits.
The structured interviews further deepened this study by engaging directly with those most intimately involved with or affected by social enterprises: the organizations that these employees stand for and the homeless individuals from the community. Carried out in a real manner to guarantee that the information is not biased, these interviews were of outstanding importance in the exposure of personal and community-level effects of social enterprises. The core stakeholders narrated by firsthand accounts the biggest challenges they faced and how their lives were changed. They actualized what these people behind the statistics of numerics were all about in their life stories. The interviews were recorded separately, and all the details were typed verbatim, enabling further step-by-step analysis. Kumar, P. (2020). This mixture of quantitative methods formed the basis of a multifaceted structure in which the symbiotic relations between social enterprises and people experiencing homelessness were depicted in a way that showed the contribution of the social enterprises to the needs of people experiencing homelessness in addition to the development of the community as a whole. These interventions then highlighted the happening of such multi-functional factors that unveiled the fundamental connection among homelessness, social support, entrepreneurs’ initiatives, and community engagement, which were examined comparatively and provided a detailed insight into how social enterprises contribute to systemic homelessness within the African American community.
Analysis of Primary Research
All the results gathered from the two main elements of my research represented in this study’s observation and interview sections provided a large grounding for the literature on the capability of social enterprises to provide solutions to homelessness. There, comments and profiles of observational data from social enterprise initiatives, such as homeless shelter cafes provided by Kumar, supported the idea that those types of institutions have a positive effect. The cafes function as pop-up components of homeless services and embody the cutting edge of solutions to homelessness, shelter, and employment. For example, the maxim Time saves time was carried out during the period in which the study was undertaken, not only affording immediate relief but also creating empowerment by making individuals more employable (Kumar,2020). These initiatives are largely based on Kumar’s notions of feasibility and practice of the concepts studied in academic journals.
Similarly, workshop attendees expressed their viewpoints by providing examples of people who gain from social engagement, which is in line with Brno’s argument about the continuing and efficacy of ongoing social enterprise agendas. They are particularly designed to be sensitive to urgent issues on personal and social levels, though such workshops continue to contribute to growing community resilience as the most crucial factor in sustainable social impact. Besides, the cooperation between social enterprises and local government agencies, shown in the form of joint community initiatives, draws attention to how the community welfare strategy is administered through multifaceted approaches. These alliances are battling for larger capacities and wider outreach, which ultimately translates into more powerful social support networks and more significant advantages for the community. The strength of this community is a self-reliant system whereby one supports the other. The study by Martinez and Lee indicated that cooperating in this manner is fundamental to effecting a great socioeconomic return for homeless people (Martinez,2017). The practical illustrations of this case make it even more evident that the theory in literature is true. Furthermore, this, in turn, explains the significant role played by social enterprises in combating homelessness and the inextricable community that gets nurtured. This benefits both the individuals and the society at large.
Conclusion
The findings of the previous investigation prove the starting assumption that social enterprises have a substantial impact on preventing homelessness among the African American community by putting their community into focus, creating employment opportunities, and offering crucial social services for community members. These organizations, in general, not only focus on the provision of immediate amenities but also work to ensure lasting stability for all and develop skills and capabilities which lead to the empowerment of people. Moreover, the next research step should include long-term studies to explore whether social enterprises have practical and lasting effects. Also, participatory research should engage community members in gathering research data to understand community transformations better. At the level of policy-making and implementation, social impact has proven how critical it is for officials and managers to take advantage of the applied social enterprise approaches within the social policy in cities. By integrating the creative approaches and shared strategies described in the report, decision-makers can enhance the efficiency of activities that seek to reduce homelessness, especially in communities that are more vulnerable, thus assuring that social enterprises remain to be considered in public financing and policy creation.
References
Johnson, M. (2019). “The Role of Social Enterprises in Addressing Homelessness: A Comprehensive Review.” Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 15(2), 123–145.
Kumar, P. (2020). “From Vision to Action: The Journey of billionBricks in Tackling Homelessness.” Social Innovation Journal, 7(1), 56–72.
Smith, R. E., & Jones, L. K. (2018). “Collaborative Approaches to Addressing Homelessness: Lessons from Partnerships between Social Enterprises and Government Agencies.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 30(4), 387–405.
Brown, A. (2021). “Innovative Financing Models for Social Enterprises Working on Homelessness.” Journal of Economic Development, 25(3), 210–228.
Martinez, S., & Lee, J. (2017). “Impact Evaluation of Social Enterprise Programs for Homeless Individuals: A Systematic Review.” Evaluation Review, 41(3), 201-225.
Dobson, R. (2022). Complex needs in homelessness practice: a review of ‘new markets of vulnerability’. Housing Studies, 37(7), 1147–1173.
Seelos, C. (2021). Homelessness, a System Perspective. The Journey of Community Solutions. Stanford PACS working paper GIIL002/2021. https://pacscenter. stanford. Edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Homelessness_ASystem-Perspective_Seelos_GIIL_002_2021. Pdf.
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