Please!   Don't just turn your head.

Some folks go home to this

      Others don't

      Some people dine in

       Others eat out

  Some kids go to University

    Some learn elsewhere

    Some drive fast cars

          Others don't

       Some don't need our help

Why are people homeless?

The first thought many people have is that they are all drunks or drug addicts. While that's true in many cases, most homeless people are not.  Many may turn to drugs and alcohol after succumbing to the despair, but addictions are not the largest instigating factors. What is the largest factor?

It's poverty of course. In 2004, 12.7% of the U.S. population, or 37 million people, lived in poverty. Both the poverty rate and the number of poor people have increased in recent years, up from 12.5% in 2003, and up 1.1 million from 2003 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2005). 36% of persons living in poverty are children; in fact, the 2004 poverty rate of 17.6% for children under 18 years old is significantly higher than the poverty rate for any other age group.

While the last few years have seen growth in real wages at all levels, these increases have not been enough to counteract a long pattern of stagnant and declining wages. Low-wage workers have been particularly hard hit by wage trends and have been left behind as the disparity between rich and poor has mushroomed. To compound the problem, the real value of the minimum wage in 2004 was 26% less than in 1979.

Many became impoverished due to extraordinary medical expenses. As a result of loss of benefits, low wages, and unstable employment, many families leaving welfare struggle to get medical care, food, and housing. Many lose health insurance, despite continued Medicaid eligibility: a study found that 675,000 people lost health insurance in 1997 as a result of the federal welfare reform legislation, including 400,000 children (Families USA, 1999).

Moreover, over 725,000 workers, laid off from their jobs due to the recession in 2000, lost their health insurance (Families USA, 2001). According to the Children’s Defense Fund, over nine million children in America have no health insurance, and over 90 percent of them are in working families.

• 66% are single adults, and of these, three-quarters are men
• 11% are parents with children, 84% of whom are single women
• 23% are children under 18 with a parent, 42% of whom are under 5 years of age

• 23% are veterans (compared to 13% of the general population)    
• 25% were physically or sexually abused as children
• 27% were in foster care or institutions as children
• 21% were homeless as children