Homelessness isn't something that just happened overnight in the United States. It's existed here for decades, although many people have tended to look the other way when they passed a homeless person on the street.
A lot of people have assumed that if someone is homeless that he or she is either a mentally ill person who was released from a mental hospital, a veteran who could not cope with the atrocities of war, or a drug addict. Although there are people who meet these criteria, these are all stereotypes that just are not universally true.
In a survey conducted by the United States Conference of Mayors in 1992 it was found that 41% of the homeless population had been substance abusers and that 28% of them were mentally ill. Therefore, the majority of people who are without a home are neither drug addicts nor are they mentally unbalanced.
Many of them were, and are, people just like you and me.
Homelessness does not have any boundaries. It affects people of every religion, race, creed, and age.
Many of the people who are now homeless have just fallen upon hard times. We all know that the economy has been in the dumps for years, now, and that there is no relief in sight. So this should not come as a shock.
In its narrowest sense, the basic cause of homelessness is one's inability to pay for an apartment or a home because of an inadequate income.
People who have lost their jobs and have been found that it is very difficult, if nearly impossible to find another means of employment. It now takes an unemployed person approximately forty weeks to find a job. And if they receive unemployment benefits they are often not enough to cover expenses.
In addition, although unemployment benefits have been extended in many states to ninety-nine weeks, many people have already used up their allocation. In many cases, the amount that they did receive was not enough to keep a roof over their heads.
If you are living from one paycheck to the next then the reality is that you, too, may find yourself without a home at some point in the future.
As many as three and one half million Americans are homeless at some point in the year. Almost one third of these people are children. And more than three hundred thousand children are homeless on any given night.
And this is happening in the richest nation in the world. Perhaps the people who support Occupy Wall Street are right.
More than half of the people who have lost their homes are families with kids. And many of them found themselves in that situation because of some event or series of life altering events that were unplanned for and came by unexpectedly. Those are the primary causes of homelessness in America. It is not due to a mental or physical disability or some major traumatic event.
Most people become homeless because of the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, divorce, domestic violence, or family disputes.
Although mental illness is not the primary cause of homelessness, many of the people who find themselves living on the streets do suffer from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, some untreated mental illness, and/or physical disabilities.
When someone is living on their financial edge (people who are close to the poverty level) what many people consider to be everyday occurrences could be enough to put them out on the street. Things such as a vehicle that breaks down, some unpaid parking tickets or a canceled automobile insurance policy could be enough to put them over that terrible edge.
For example, if a family is having a hard time keeping up with their bills and one of the members of the family contracts a serious illness, taking care of that person may deplete any savings that they have. And when their funds are depleted they could very well find that they are no longer able to keep up with the rent or the mortgage payments.
While politicians are bailing out banks who don't care about anything other than their bottom lines, many people are still losing their homes to foreclosure.
In addition, there have been devastating hurricanes and tornadoes that have destroyed homes or left them too costly to repair.
The newly homeless are challenged with trying to figure out how they will be able to return to their previous lives. As a stop gap measure many of them have turned to homeless shelters across the nation. They are hoping to find temporary shelter clothing, food and services in these shelters.
Homeless services have come to rely on homeless shelter software to collect family and individual information, track any progress that has been made, coordinate services and generate reports.
by Wendy Moyer
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