An idea I've had in my head for a while now is to put the United States' Reserve Fleets to this use. Instead of maintaining these inactive ships to be recalled to active duty (unlikely, considering the age of some of these ships), why not convert them to be used as cheap or free housing for the nation's homeless? Here, I'll give you examples as to why this would be a good idea:
In the James River Reserve Fleet there are about 60 ships laid up. In the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, there are around 80 ships just sitting around.
- Four Forrestal-class aircraft carriers were built, each one with a crew compliment of 4,378.
- Four Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carriers were built, each one with around 5,624 crew members.
- The USS Enterprise is nearing the end of her service life, and her compliment is around 5,828
Nine ships that the Navy doesn't want anymore could put a roof over the heads of 45,836 people who would otherwise be living on the street.
Now, if we still had all of the Midway-class aircraft carriers, that would have been three more ships that could carry a total of 12,312 people.
The battleship USS Iowa embarked with a crew of 2788 people.
There are 4 Ticonderoga-class cruisers laid up currently, each with a compliment of around 400 crew.
I have just listed 17 ships that are sitting and rusting when they could be used to keep 62,536 people off of the streets and alleyways, could give them a roof, warmth, shower and food facilities and, most importantly, mailing addresses for employment and getting themselves a chance for a better opportunity. The homeless problem is easy to solve.
I just listed what we could have done with 17 ships, had a number of them not been scrapped or sunk and with no modifications to them at all.
What could we do with the 140 ships laid up in those two reserve fleets I just mentioned? How many people could we get off the streets and give a chance to find employment if we used all of our reserve fleets?
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