 Photo: Lena Hilliard LENA HILLIARD, EQUAL JUSTICE DIRECTOR Last Monday, the members of the Roosevelt Institute Equal Justice Policy and Advocacy Center traveled to the Transitional Housing Corporation (THC), a non-profit operating in the Washington, DC area. We were greeted by staff at the organization, who took us downstairs into an office room, where we matched up alarming facts and statistics on homelessness in the DC metropolitan area. These statistics made it clear that there is a vital need for organizations such as THC.
As we learned, there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of homeless families in the past 10 years, and the price of living in DC is so high that to afford a market-value, two-bedroom apartment, one needs to work 3.4 minimum wage jobs. After learning these alarming statistics about homelessness, we had a very comprehensive lesson on how the Transitional Housing Corporation is taking action to combat the issue. Since its founding in 1990, THC has, through support services and housing opportunities, helped to place more than 500 families into stable homes. They utilize four different housing systems: Transitional Housing, Permanent Supportive, Rapid Rehousing, and Affordable Housing. Transitional Housing is a system that bridges the gap between living in a shelter and living in an owned or rented home. It is a stable place of residence and a support system for families while they become more financially independent. Support is given to help people enter a stable job and receive consistent income. Permanent Supportive Housing moves families into permanent homes with leases in their names and offers comprehensive support as needed. The Rapid Rehousing system provides short term monetary assistance to place families in permanent housing in their names as quickly as the housing market allows. The last system, Affordable Housing, allows families to be placed in the district in a home that is within their means. THC only works with homeless families in Washington, DC, a group whose number now hovers around 1,231. To qualify as a family, the group must include one adult 18 years or older and one dependent under 18 years old. The organization has struggled in the past with identifying how many homeless families actually exist in the district because less than 15 percent of people are considered chronically homeless -- the most overt form of homelessness, where a person has no roof over their head. Many families stay with relatives and may not identify as homeless. When asked about how gentrification has affected their cause, THC was undecided. While the city is becoming safer and safer, the organization is finding an even greater need for its services. More and more families can no longer afford the cost of living and are being forced into unfavorable situations. Ultimately, the Transitional Housing Corporation aims to end homelessness in the District of Columbia. “We want to work ourselves out of a job,” said staff member Quinn Miller. All statistics are courtesy of the Transitional Housing Corporation.
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 Photo: iaea.org DAWID SKALKOWSKI, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS DIRECTOR The Alexander Hamilton Society at the George Washington University recently hosted a debate between Philip Gordon, of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Mark Dubowitz, Executive Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Gordon has suggested that history shows it is unlikely for the United States and its partners to negotiate a better agreement than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iranian leaders. Dubowitz argued that it is not only possible to acquire a better arms agreement, but that the United States and its partners must do so if they intend to ensure the stability of the region in the long-run. This post will not examine details of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (more commonly referred to as the Iran Deal); Vox has an in-depth overview of the language within the agreement. Much of the discussion surrounding the agreement has pointed towards the same objective: removing the possibility for Iran to develop industrial-sized centrifuges that can enrich uranium to produce a bomb. Yet critics and proponents alike disregard a crucial component to the discussion: preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons compounds its desire to acquire them in the long-run. Mark Dubowitz is correct to point out that the major flaw of the nuclear agreement rests in its ballistic missile restrictions being depleted over a fifteen year period, assuming Iran complies with all components of the agreement. To be sure, no agreement has the potential to prevent Iran from acquiring advanced centrifuges and building an arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles. As Kenneth Waltz has contended, attempts to punish Iran for developing a nuclear program through economic and political sanctions further draw Iranian leaders to pursue the ultimate deterrent. Leaders have proven to the international system that Iran responds to sanctions and incentives like any other state would. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew announced in April that Iran’s economy was fifteen to twenty percent smaller than it would have been had it remained on its pre-2012 growth trajectory. Clearly, Tehran has taken notice. Critics of an armed Iran often look to discredit the regime by portraying its officials as irrational fanatics who would utilize a nuclear weapon against Israel. Yet, if Iranian leaders were willing to join international negotiations to remove sanctions on its economy—what is to suggest they would accept self-destruction through the promise of Israeli retaliation? History is on the side of nuclear states that the international community wanted to disarm. North Korea frequently utilizes bellicose rhetoric towards other actors on the international stage, but has not employed use of its ballistic missile technology against another state. A nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union revealed that the promise of mutually assured destruction has served as the primary deterrent from states utilizing their nuclear programs. If the United States and its partners find it in their interest to stabilize the region, the foremost consideration to be made is to recognize an Iranian withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Next, the United States and the international community should draw back its sanctions against Iran. As Daniel Drezner has indicated, sanctions against Iran have the potential to weigh heavily on Iran’s economy—they do not, however, have the ability to alter Iran’s willingness to concede on arming itself with a nuclear weapon. By some accounts, sanctions make Iranian leaders more likely to perceive an external threat, and provide them with an even greater incentive to pursue a nuclear program. The United States, and its partners in the region, should take steps towards drafting treaties that prevent the targeting of nuclear facilities—an initiative that was successfully accomplished between India and Pakistan in 1991. We will have to accept that Iran’s regime will eventually gain nuclear capabilities, and we need to turn the discussion surrounding Iran towards what a world like that will look like, and how the United States and its partners can prepare to accept that reality. In the question of whether or not states should have the potential to pursue nuclear weapons, the international community may attempt to delay the construction of nuclear programs, but ultimately cannot erase the desire for states to defend themselves on the international stage. Whether or not allowing Iran to develop a nuclear program would make it a more responsible actor on the international stage is a topic for a different discussion. By providing Tehran the assurance it needs to secure itself against opposing powers in the region, the international community would be taking a step towards recognizing and fulfilling greater stability in the region. By gaining a nuclear program, Iran will be joining a community of other nations that have developed nuclear programs against opposition from the international community, and ultimately have been deterred from utilizing them. |
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