Homelessness in the United States
Encyclopedia
Homelessness in the United States has continued to remain a focus area of concern of social service providers, government officials, and policy professionals since its resurgence among many types of individuals and families. The number of homeless people further grew in the 1980s, as housing and social service cuts increased and the economy deteriorated. The United States government determined that somewhere between 200,000 and 500,000 Americans were then homeless.
Over the past decade or so, the availability and quality of data on homelessness has improved considerably, due in part to initiatives by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD
), the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and several nongovernmental organizations working with homeless populations. Since 2007, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued an Annual Homeless Assessment Report, which reports to Congress the number of individuals and families who are homeless in the previous year, both sheltered and unsheltered, in order to standardized data and collection processes for government officials and service providers.
According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 643,067 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide as of January 2009. Additionally, about 1.56 million people used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program during the 12-month period between October 1, 2008 and September 30, 2009. This number suggests that roughly 1 in every 200 persons in the US used the shelter system at some point in that period.
According to the United States Conference of Mayors, the main cause is the lack of affordable housing
.
The four next primary causes are:
The minor causes cited by the mayors were:
While there is no one agreed upon definition, one definition originally developed as part of the McKinney-Vento Act of 1987 federal legislation, describes a "homeless" person as being:
According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the demand for emergency shelter in 270 U.S. cities increased 13% in 2001 and 25% in 2005. 22 percent of those requesting emergency shelter were turned away.
Traditionally single men have constituted the majority of the homeless. In the 1980s there was a sharp rise in the number of homeless families in certain parts of the United States; notably New York City. Most homeless families consist of a single mother and children. A significant number of homeless people are teenagers and young adults, mostly runaways or street children. A 1960 survey by Temple University
of Philadelphia
's poor neighborhoods found that 75% of the homeless were over 45 years old, and 87% were white. In 1986, 86% were under age 45, and 87% were minorities
.
According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2008 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, the most common demographic features of all sheltered homeless people are: male, members of minority groups, older than age 31, and alone. More than two-fifths of sheltered homeless people have a disability. At the same time, sizable segments of the sheltered homeless population are white, non-Hispanic (38 percent), children (20 percent), or part of multi-person households (33 percent). Approximately 68 percent of the 1.6 million sheltered homeless people were homeless as individuals and 32 percent were persons in families.
In 2008 more than two-thirds of all sheltered homeless people were located in principal cities, with 32 percent located in suburban or rural jurisdictions. About two-fifths of people entering an emergency shelter or transitional housing program during 2008 came from another homeless situation (sheltered or unsheltered), two-fifths came from a housed situation (in their own or someone else's home), and the remaining one-fifth
were split between institutional settings or other situations such as hotels or motels. Most people had relatively short lengths of stay in emergency shelters: three-fifths stayed
less than a month, and a third stayed a week or less.
(AHAR), released in June of every year since 2007. The AHAR report relies on data from two sources: single-night, point-in-time counts of both sheltered and unsheltered homeless populations reported on the Continuum of Care applications to HUD; and counts of the sheltered homeless population over a full year provided by a sample of communities based on data in their local Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS).
Total Number
Familial composition
1.37 million (or 39%) of the total homeless population are children under the age of 18.
Marital status
Ethnicity
Health-concerns.
Education
Employment
Location.
Duration
". In New York City, for example, there was an area known as "the Bowery", traditionally, where alcoholics were to be found sleeping on the streets, bottle in hand. Rescue missions offering "soup, soap, and salvation", a phrase introduced by The Salvation Army
, sprang up along the Bowery thoroughfare, including the oldest one, The Bowery Mission. The mission was founded in 1879 by the Rev. and Mrs. A.G. Ruliffson.
The mission's parent organization, Christian Herald, once published Christian Herald And Signs Of Our Times. In relating the formation and origin of the mission in its March 27, 1895 edition a chronology is given: "Fifteen years ago, Rev. A.G. Ruliffson and Mrs. Ruliffson, long engaged in mission work in New York, decided to open an eastside mission for men." Thus, based on this chronology, the time frame is 1880 rather than 1879.
At the time the Bowery Mission was established it was located at 36 Bowery, a location that in an earlier time in New York City, played a role in the New York City Draft Riots, when the building was used as a saloon.
An examination of the Annual Reports for the first decade of the mission, and period New York City newspapers starting in 1881, suggest that an 1880 date for the mission is more likely than 1879. To cite examples from period newspapers, The New York Tribune's article, "The Bowery Mission, A Sketch of its Career", dated March 14, 1898 opens with "The Bowery Mission was started in 1880 at No.36 Bowery by a number of men who were interested in mission work." An even earlier article appearing in The New York Tribune on November 8, 1880, "A Bright Spot In The Darkness", declared "The Bowery Evangelical Mission, at No.36 Bowery, was opened yesterday afternoon with a prayer-meeting, at which some 150 persons were present." The present location of the Bowery Mission at 227-229 Bowery dates to 1909 when an abandoned coffin factory was converted to a mission.
In smaller towns, there were hobo
s, who temporarily lived near train tracks and hopped onto trains to various destinations. Especially following the American Civil War
, a large number of homeless men formed part of a counterculture known as "hobohemia" all over America. This phenomenon re-surged in the 1930s during and after the Great Depression
.
Jacob Riis
wrote about, documented, and photographed the poor and destitute, although not specifically the homeless, in New York City tenements in the late 19th century. His ground-breaking book, How the Other Half Lives
, published in 1890, raised public awareness of living conditions in the slums, causing some changes in building codes and some social conditions.
The Community Mental Health Act
of 1963 was a pre-disposing factor in setting the stage for homelessness in the United States. Long term psychiatric patients were released from state hospitals into Single Room Occupancies
and sent to community health centers for treatment and follow-up. It never quite worked out properly and this population largely was found living in the streets soon thereafter with no sustainable support system.
In 1965, The Diggers
, a community-action group dedicated to the concept of everything being free of charge, established soup kitchens and free health-care facilities in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. This also began a movement of people that began to travel for political reasons as well as for personal choices. This is where the beginnings of the American nomadic caravans became popular, living homelessly, but happily.
In 1969 the Pine Street Inn was founded by Paul Sullivan on Pine Street in Boston's Chinatown district
and began caring for homeless destitute alcoholics. In 1980, it moved to larger facilities on Harrison Avenue in Boston due to growing needs of the homeless population.
In 1974, Kip Tiernan
founded Rosie's Place
in Boston, the first drop-in and emergency shelter for women in the United States, in response to the increasing numbers of needy women throughout the country.
In 1979, a New York City lawyer, Robert Hayes, brought a class action suit before the courts, Callahan v. Carey, against the City and State, arguing for a person's state constitutional "right to shelter". It was settled as a consent decree in August 1981. The City and State agreed to provide board and shelter to all homeless men who met the need standard for welfare or who were homeless by certain other standards. By 1983 this right was extended to homeless women.
Most notable were cuts to federal low-income housing programs. An advocacy group claims that Congress halved the budget for public housing
and Section 8
(the government's housing voucher subsidization program) and that between the years of 1980 and 1989 HUD's budget authority was reduced from $74 billion to $19 billion. Such alleged changes is claimed to have resulted in an inadequate supply of affordable housing
to meet the growing demand of low-income populations. In 1970 there were 300,000 more low-cost rental units (6.5 million) than low-income renter households (6.2 million). By 1985 the advocacy group claimed that the number of low-cost units had fallen to 5.6 million, and the number of low-income renter households had grown to 8.9 million, a disparity of 3.3 million units
The 1980s also saw a continuing trend of deinstitutionalizing mental-health hospitals. It is believed that a large percentage of these released patients ended up in the homeless system.
Many existing shelters and soup kitchens had to expand their facilities to accommodate the larger number of homeless. For example, in 1980, the Pine Street Inn had to move to larger facilities on Harrison Avenue in Boston and in 1984, Saint Francis House
had to move its operation from the St. Anthony Shrine on Arch Street to an entire ten floor building on Boylston Street
.
In response to the ensuing homelessness crisis of the 1980s, concerned citizens across the country demanded that the federal government provide assistance. After many years of advocacy and numerous revisions, President Reagan signed into law the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
in 1987—this remains the only piece of federal legislation that allocates funding to the direct service of homeless people.
By the mid-1980s, there was also a dramatic increase in family homelessness. Tied into this was an increasing number of impoverished and runaway children, teenagers, and young adults, which created a new sub-stratum of the homeless population.
Another emerging concern at the onset of this decade was the disproportionate representation of the LGBTQ community among the population of unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness. In 2002, activist and youth advocate Carl Siciliano founded the Ali Forney Center—a homeless shelter in New York City that is dedicated specifically to providing aid and shelter to homeless and at-risk LGBTQ youth. The center takes its name from a queer teenager who lived on the streets for much of the 1990s. While homeless, Ali Forney protected other LGBTQ homeless youth by performing HIV prevention and awareness work. He also urged the NYPD to investigate the murders of several queer homeless youth whom he had befriended during his time on the street. In 1997, Ali Forney was himself murdered by an as-of-yet unidentified attacker. However, Ali's outreach and advocacy work inspired Carl Siciliano to found an organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ homeless youth in New York. The Ali Forney Center provides both emergency and transitional housing for queer homeless youth, whose numbers account for anywhere between 20-40% of the 2.1 million homeless youth in America. The percentage of LGBTQ homeless youth is much higher than that of the general population, which runs between 5-10%. The work of the Ali Forney Center is one example of the ways that the social service community has responded to the needs of growing sub-populations of those experiencing homelessness.
In 2001, the NAEH
along with the U.S. ICH
encouraged communities to create and implement state and local strategic plans to prevent and end homelessness, focusing on Housing First
initiatives to house the chronically homeless population who have many barriers to stability, a cost-benefit analysis of state- and local-level resources, best practice engagement and service innovations, and prevention. Many communities and states across the country have created these plans and have set up measurable goals and targets for the short- and long-term.
In February 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
, which was part of the President's effort to save or create 3.5 million jobs in the United States to mitigate the effects of the economic recession begun in 2008. Part of the Act addressed homelessness prevention, in which he allocated an additional $1.5 billion to HUD for the "Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program (HPRP)." The purpose of HPRP was to assist individuals and families who are otherwise healthy and not chronically homeless in escaping homelessness or preventing homelessness of the vulnerable population. HPRP grant monies were distributed to localities in the same formula used for Emergency Shelter Grants (ESG) in amounts not to exceed $500,000 and must be used within three years. Primary grantee activities include short-term and medium-term rental assistance and housing relocation and stabilization services, including mediation, credit counseling, security or utility deposits, utility payments, moving cost assistance, and case management.
On May 20, 2009, President Obama signed the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act into Public Law (Public Law 111-22 or "PL 111-22"), reauthorizing HUD
's Homeless Assistance programs. It was part of the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009
. The HEARTH act allows for the prevention of homelessness, rapid re-housing, consolidation of housing programs, and new homeless categories. In the eighteen months after the bill's signing, HUD had to begin implementing the new McKinney-compliant programs. In late 2009, some homeless advocacy organizations, such as the National Coalition for the Homeless, reported and published perceived problems with the HEARTH Act of 2009 as a HUD McKinney-Vento Reauthorization bill, especially with regard to privacy, definitional ineligibility, community roles, and restrictions on eligibile activities. However, at the close of 2010 HUD reported that many communities had successfully used HPRP funds to assist those in need in their communities, and reported that the program prevented homelessness for nearly 750,000 Americans.
The Federal government contains one agency that focuses on the issue of homelessness in America, and it has had a much greater role in the policy community since its revitalization at the beginning of the decade and its continued appropriations in the HEARTH Act. The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH),a federal agency contained in the Executive Branch, was established in 1987 as a requirement of the McKinney-Vento Act of 1987. Since its revitalization in 2001 as an agency independent from the Executive Office of the President and reauthorization in 2009, USICH serves as the coordinating body of all 19 federal agencies and their programs and initiatives to serve the homeless population. Its mission is to, "coordinate the Federal response to homelessness and to create a national partnership at every lever of government and with the private sector to reduce and end homelessness in the nation while maximizing the effectiveness of the Federal Government in contributing to the end of homelessness." USICH has taken on a much greater role in Federal-level initiatives to end homelessness in the United States since exiting the Executive Office of the President and notably since the enactment of the HEARTH Act, in which it was mandated that USICH provide leadership in developing a national strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness. Since its authorization as an independent agency, USICH been able to work with stakeholders across all government sectors and at all levels to promote collaboration and best practices within the homeless service provider community.
, which worked with all Federal agencies and many state and local stakeholders on its creation and vision, setting a ten year path for the nation on preventing and ending all types of homelessness. This Plan was presented to the President and Congress in a White House Ceremony on June 22, 2010.
The Vision of the Plan is: "No one should experience homelessness - no one should be without a safe, stable place to call home."
This document focuses on four main goals:
The most recent Point-In-Time Count by HUD
took place the second two weeks of January 2011, and data reported at that time and gathered from Continuum of Care providers in local communities will be used to compile the 2010 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to be released in the middle of 2011.
Housing opportunities:
Many workers cannot afford to live where they work, and even in moderately priced communities housing costs require a large portion of household income.
Lastly, it should be mentioned that some people find themselves homeless due to unexpected extenuating circumstances:
More affordable housing
Homeless individuals report a lack of affordable housing
as the number one reason for becoming homeless. This inadequacy must be remedied in order to get people off the streets and out of shelters. Many non-profit organization
s are in operation to serve this need—for example, the National Low Income Housing Coalition—but most lack the funding necessary to create enough housing. Several proposed policy measures are designed to secure such funding, such as the National Housing Trust Fund, but these have not been signed into law.
Comprehensive health care
Homeless individuals report mental illness as being the number three reason for becoming or staying homeless. Such illnesses are often closely linked with the fourth reason—substance abuse—and therefore it is generally accepted that both of these issues should be treated simultaneously. Although many medical, psychiatric, and counseling services exist to address these needs, it is commonly believed that without the support of reliable and stable housing such treatments remain ineffective. Furthermore, in the absence of a universal health-care plan, many of those in need cannot afford such services. Legislation such as the Bringing America Home Act, if enacted, would provide comprehensive and available treatment for all.
Paradigm shift
A significant paradigm has occurred in homeless services over the past five years which has begun to shift the emphasis from "managing the problem of homelessness" with emergency shelters, soup kitchens and health clinic to ending homelessness by housing individuals who are experiencing homelessness. In 2000, the National Alliance to End Homelessness http://www.endhomelessness.org/ released "A Plan, Not a Dream: How to End Homelessness in Ten Years" which encouraged communities to develop and implement 10 year plans to end homelessness in their communities.
Key effective programs include:
In Boston, Massachusetts, in September 2007, an outreach to the homeless was initiated in the Boston Common, after some arrests and shootings, and in anticipation of the cold winter ahead. This outreach targets homeless people who would normally spend their sleeping time on the Boston Common, and tries to get them into housing, trying to skip the step of an emergency shelter. Applications for Boston Housing Authority were being handed out and filled out and submitted. This is an attempt to enact by outreach the Housing First initiative, federally mandated. Boston's Mayor, Thomas Menino
, was quoted as saying "The solution to homelessness is permanent housing". Still, this is a very controversial strategy, especially if the people are not able to sustain a house with proper community, health, substance counseling, and mental health supportive programs.
Since the housing market fall out there has been a rise is homeless students. NAEHCY or the National Association for the Education of Homeless for Children and Youth, has reported that there has been a rise in homeless student as much as 99% within a three month period (San Diego).
Of 1,636 schools, 330 reported no increase, 847 reported an increase of half, and 459 reported an increase of 25% or more. Due to the provisions of the McKinney-Vento Act many school districts are struggling to provide the necessary services, such as rising transportation needs and the greater severity of services.
This is especially worrisome since homeless students are 1) 1.5 times more likely to perform below grade level in reading; 2)1.5 times more likely to perform below grade level in spelling; and 3) 2.5 times more likely to perform below grade level in math.
There are a few worries that there will be false reports of homeless students, but mostly it's not an issue.
) are unjustified. In the 1990s, particularly, many observers and media articles spoke of "compassion fatigue
" a belief that the public had grown weary of this seemingly intractable problem.
Public opinion surveys show relatively little support for this view, however. A 1995 paper in the American Journal of Community Psychology concluded that "although the homeless are clearly stigmatized, there is little evidence to suggest that the public has lost compassion and is unwilling to support policies to help homeless people." A Penn State study in 2004 concluded that "familiarity breeds sympathy" and greater support for addressing the problem.
A 2007 survey of New Yorkers found 67 percent said most homeless people were without shelter because of "circumstances beyond their control." More than one-third (36 percent) said they worried about becoming homeless themselves, with 15 percent saying they were "very worried." The survey by the nonpartisan group Public Agenda found support for investments in prevention, rental assistance and permanent housing.
Public Agenda has also concluded, however, that the public's sympathy has limits. In a 2002 national survey, the organization found 74 percent say the police should leave a homeless person alone if he or she is not bothering anyone. Yet 71 percent say the police should move the homeless if they are keeping customers away from a shopping area and 51 percent say the homeless should be moved if they are driving other people away from a public park.
, and $1.4 billion was used for Homeless Assistance Grants. As one example, Volunteers of America
is an agency that believes preventing family homelessness is a critical part of their organization. Through them, transitional housing and emergency shelters are available to those who are in desperate need.
Some shelters and associated charitable foundations have bought buildings and real estate to develop into permanent housing for the homeless in lieu of transitional Housing.
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
and Veterans Administration
have a special Section 8
housing voucher program called VASH (Veterans Administration Supported Housing), or HUD-VASH, which gives out a certain number of Section 8 subsidized housing vouchers to eligible homeless and otherwise vulnerable US armed forces veterans.
Substance abuse prevention
Without supportive services, housing is not often enough to end homelessness. Various agencies, in fact all homeless prevention agencies and programs include substance abuse recovery and prevention programs. Objectives are to provide substance abuse counseling and access to treatment centers.
Self-sufficiency
For a significant number of homeless Americans with mental or physical impairments, often coupled with drug and/or alcohol use issues, long-term homelessness can only be ended by providing permanent housing coupled with intensive supportive services.
On May 20, 2009, President Barack Obama
signed the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act of 2009. The HEARTH Act amends and reauthorizes the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
with substantial changes. The HEARTH Act of 2009 consolidated HUD’s competitive grant programs, created a Rural Housing Stability Program, changed HUD’s definition of homelessness and chronic homelessness, supplied a simplified match requirement, increased prevention resources and increased in the emphasis on performance.The primary purpose of the legislation was to provide principle definitions regarding homelessness. The following terms: "homeless," "homeless individual," "homeless person," and "homeless individual with a disability."
is a relatively recent innovation that has met with success in providing housing to homeless people with substance abuse problems or mental health issues. Housing First allows homeless men and women to be taken directly off the street into private community-based apartments, without requiring treatment first. This allows the homeless to return to some sense of normalcy, from which it is believed that they are better-poised to tackle their addictions or sicknesses. The relapse rate through these types of programs is lower than that of conventional homeless programs.
It was initiated by the federal government's Interagency Council on Homelessness. It asks cities to come up with a plan to end chronic homelessness. In this direction, there is the belief that if homeless people are given independent housing to start off with, with some proper social supports, then there would be no need for emergency homeless shelters, which it considers a good outcome. This is a very controversial position. There are many complications of this kind of program and these must be dealt with to make such an initiative work successfully in the middle to long term.
In April 2006 the U.S. 9th District Court ruled that "making it a crime to be homeless by charging them with a crime is in violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments." http://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=OCLGetCaseDetail&format=FULL&sourceID=gdjd&searchTerm=eKSa.XQEa.aadi.Yebg&searchFlag=y&l1loc=FCLOW
- id. at 568 n.31
(Fortas, J., dissenting); the Eighth Amendment prohibits the City from punishing involuntary sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter in the City of Los Angeles.
However, on October 15, 2007, the Court vacated its Opinion when, on appeal the parties settled the case out of court.http://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=OCLGetCaseDetail&format=FULL&sourceID=gdjd&searchTerm=eQYD.jZja.UYGY.EcjT&searchFlag=y&l1loc=FCLOW
In August 2007, in Boston, Massachusetts, the city took action to keep loiterers, including the homeless, off the Boston Common overnight, after a series of violent crimes and drug arrests.
A federal appeals court ruled an anti-homeless
policy in Los Angeles as unconstitutional.
In recent years, largely due to the efforts of the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) and academic researchers, the problem of violence against the homeless has gained national attention. In their report: Hate, Violence, and Death on Mainstreet USA, the NCH reported 386 violent acts committed against homeless persons over the period, among which 155 were lethal. The NCH called those acts hate crimes (they retain the definition of the American Congress). They insist that so called bumfight videos disseminate hate against the homeless and dehumanize them.
The Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism (CSHE) at California State University
, San Bernardino in conjunction with the NCH found that 155 homeless people were killed by non-homeless people in "hate killings", while 76 people were killed in all the other traditional hate crime homicide
categories such as race and religion, combined. The CSHE contends that negative and degrading portrayals of the homeless contribute to a climate where violence takes place.
Various studies and surveys indicate that homeless people have a much higher criminal victimization rate than the non-homeless, but that most incidents never get reported to authorities. On October 1, 2006 CBS News 60 Minutes telecast a story on "thrill" violence against the homeless and "Bumfights" videos. A 2007 study found that the number of violent crimes against the homeless is increasing.
also suffer from visible homelessness. Los Angeles, of course, has approximately 10 times the population of San Francisco, so proportionately, San Francisco has a greater population of homeless persons.
In 2009, the author Geoffrey Neil wrote a novel, Dire Means, whose underlying premise was about the homeless situation in Santa Monica, California.
" plan. At the same time, grassroots organizations within the Bay Area such as the Suitcase Clinic
work to provide referrals for housing and employment to the homeless population. In 2010, a city ordinance was passed which will disallow sitting and lying down on public sidewalks for most of the day, from 7am until 11pm.
, although no statistical data has backed this up. The reputation stems primarily from the subjective number of beggars found on the streets rather than any sort of objective statistical census data. Indeed, from statistical data, Chicago has far less homeless per capita than peers New York, and Los Angeles, or other major cities such as Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Boston, among others, with only 5,922 homeless recorded in a one night count taken in 2007.
, Mayor John Hickenlooper
has made dealing with the issues that underlie homelessness a top priority on his Mayoral agenda, speaking heavily on the issue during his first "State of the City" address in 2003. While Denver's homeless population is much lower than other major cities, the homeless residents have often suffered when without shelter during Denver's infamously cold winters. Now officials have said that this number has risen over the past few years.http://www.denvergov.org/Homelessness/default.asp
, as many as 2,200 people are homeless on any given night, and as many as 15,000 individuals over the course of a year. Indianapolis is notable among cities of similar size for having only faith-based shelters, such as the century-old http://www.wmm.org Wheeler Mission. In 2001, Mayor Bart Peterson
endorsed a 10-year plan, called the http://www.chipindy.org/pdf/ReaderFormatAll.pdf Blueprint to End Homelessness, and made it one of his administration's top priorities. The plan's main goals are for more affordable housing
units, employment opportunities, and support services. The Blueprint notwithstanding, Indianapolis has criminalized aspects of homelessness, such as making panhandling a misdemeanor
; and the http://www.indygov.org/egov/Council/home.htm City-County Council has twice (in April 2002, and August 2005) denied the zoning necessary to open a new shelter for homeless women.
of Boston, announced that the one night homeless count had revealed that the actual number of homeless living in the streets was down.
In October 2008, Connie Paige of The Boston Globe reported that the number of homeless in Massachusetts had reached an all-time high, mostly due to mortgage foreclosures and the national economic crisis.
In October 2009, as part of the city's Leading the Way initiative, Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston dedicated and opened the Weintraub Day Center which is the first city-operated day center for chronically homeless persons. It is a multi-service center, providing shelter, counseling, health care, housing assistance, and other support services. It is a 3400 square feet (315.9 m²) facility located in the Woods Mullen Shelter. It is also meant to reduce the strain on the city's hospital emergency rooms by providing services and identifying health problems before they escalate into emergencies. It was funded by $3 million in grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
, Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), the Massachusetts Medical Society and Alliance Charitable Foundation, and the United States Department of Health and Human Services
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA).
In 2010, there was a continued crackdown on panhandling, especially the aggressive type, in downtown Boston. Summonses were being handed out, with scheduled court appearances. The results were mixed and in one upscale neighborhood, Beacon Hill, the resolve of the Beacon Hill Civic Association, which has received only one complaint about panhandlers, was to try to solve the bigger problem not by criminal actions.
Due to economic constraints in 2010, Governor Deval Patrick
had to cut the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 2011 budget so dental care for the majority of adults, including most homeless people, covered by MassHealth (Medicaid) would no longer be provided except for cleaning and extractions, with no fillings, dentures, or restorative care. This does not affect dental care for children. The measure took effect in July 2010 and affects an estimated 700,000 adults, including 130,000 seniors.
In September 2010, it was reported that the Housing First Initiative had significantly reduced the chronic homeless single person population in Boston, Massachusetts, although homeless families were still increasing in number. Some shelters were reducing the number of beds due to lowered numbers of homeless, and some emergency shelter facilities were closing, especially the emergency Boston Night Center.
There is sometimes corruption and theft by the employees of a shelter as evidenced by a 2011 investigative report by FOX 25 TV
in Boston
wherein a number of Boston public shelter employees were found stealing large amounts of food over a period of time from the shelter's kitchen for their private use and catering.
According to the Coalition for the Homeless, the homeless population of New York rose to an all-time high in 2011. A reported 113,552 people slept in the city’s emergency shelters last year, including over 40,000 children; marking an 8 percent increase from the previous year and a 37 percent increase from 2002. There was also a rise in the number of families relying on shelters, approximately 29,000. That is an increase of 80% from 2002. About half of the people who slept in shelter in 2010 returned for housing in 2011.http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/home-a26.shtml
According to the NYC Department of Homeless Services, 64 percent of those applying for emergency shelter in 2010 were denied. Several were denied because they were said to have family who could house them when in actuality this might not have been the case. Applicants may have faced overcrowding, unsafe conditions, or may have had relatives unwilling to house them. According to Mary Brosnaham, spokeswoman for Coalition for the Homeless, the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg employs a deliberate policy of “active deterrence”.
Part of the problem lies with long-term joblessness that characterizes the United States’ economic crisis. According to the Center for an Urban Future about a third of the adult workers in New York City are low-wage earners, making under $11.54 an hour.
Affordable rent rates considered to be no more than a third of the renter’s wages. A family in New York City must earn at least over $54,000 to find an affordable home. The median household income for renters in the Bronx and Brooklyn is barely $30,000 and 35,000 respectively. According to the Community Service Society, “Two-thirds of poor New Yorkers and over one-third of near poor households—up to twice the poverty level—spend at least half of their incomes on rent…and place millions of low-income New Yorkers at risk of housing hardships and displacement.”
The New York City Housing Authority is experiencing record demand for subsidized housing assistance. However, just 13,000 of the 29,000 families who applied were admitted into the public housing system or received federal housing vouchers known as [Section 8] in 2010. Due to budget cuts there have been no new applicants accepted to receive Section 8.http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/03/11/budget-cuts-threaten-nyc-homeless-program/
In March 2010, there were protests about the Governor's proposed cut of $65 million in annual funding to the homeless adult services system. The Bloomberg administration announced an immediate halt to the Advantage program, threatening to cast 15,000 families back into the shelters or onto the streets. A court has delayed the cut until May 2011 because there was doubt over the legality of cancelling the city’s commitment. However, the Advantage program http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/04/11/advocates-say-homelessness-in-new-york-city-has-reached-record-levels/ itself was consciously advanced by the Bloomberg administration as an alternative to providing long-term affordable housing opportunities for the poor and working class. The result, as the [Coalition for the Homeless] report points out, is that “Thousands of formerly-homeless children and families have been forced back into homelessness, In addition, Mayor Bloomberg proposed $37 million in cuts to the city’s budget for homeless services this year.http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/home-a26.shtml
proposed building a Pedestrian village
for the adult homeless in Volusia County near Daytona Beach, Florida
in 2007. As of 2009, Arth was still working toward trying to consolidate most of the scattered 19 local agencies into an attractive community that would be designed to more effectively address the needs of the chronically adult homeless and the temporarily adult homeless, as well as others who may be having difficulty fitting into the pervasive, automobile-dominated culture. He writes that the current "piecemeal approach" inefficiently spreads out services and work opportunities, and aggravates the problem by polarizing citizens who might otherwise be inclined to help. In response to critics who say that such a village would be like a concentration camp, Arth points out that the U.S. already concentrates their citizens into prisons at 7-8 times the rate of Canada or Europe. "There should be alternative between living on the street and being locked up that addresses the needs of the chronically and temporarily adult homeless." His proposed "Tiger Bay Village" would have a community garden and orchard, a place to hire certified workers, and a work crew to help build and maintain the village. "Little shops in the village center could process and rehabilitate donated clothes and furnishings to be sold to the public." Housing would range from multi-bed barracks to small Katrina cottages depending on a person's contributions to the village, special needs, and income. Arth claims that this would cost less and be far more effective than any of the other solutions tried elsewhere.
is reported to be a new and effective way to beg without feeling shame.
.
A 2011 study led by Dr. Rebecca T. Brown in Boston, Massachusetts conducted by the Institute for Aging Research (an affiliate of Harvard Medical School), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
, and the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program found the elderly homeless population had "higher rates of geriatric syndromes, including functional decline, falls, frailty and depression, than seniors in the general population and that many of these conditions may be easily treated if detected". The report was published in the Journal of Geriatric Internal Medicine.
In the last decades of the 20th century, the number of women in the homeless population had increased dramatically and grown faster than the number of men. In the early 21st century, the numbers of homeless women continued to grow. In 2008 in one sample, women represented 26% of the respondents surveyed, compared to 24% in 2007.
Homeless women between the ages of 18 and 44 are between 5 and 31 times more at risk of dying than those women who have homes. Homeless women over the age of 44, however, are healthier than homeless men of the same age, and are negligibly more at risk of dying than housed women. Psychologically, however, homeless women in their fifties suffer from troubles and chronic diseases from which their housed counterparts only begin to suffer in their seventies. Despite their comparable psychological condition, elderly housing assistance is not available to these homeless women. Between 3.1 and 4.4 % of homeless women in the United States are veterans of the armed services
. 57% of these have availed of the Veterans Affairs
' healthcare services.
Adult partner abuse, foster care, and childhood sexual abuse are all more likely to have been experienced by homeless women than by their male counterparts. Domestic violence is the direct cause of homelessness for over half of all homeless women in the United States. Approximately three quarters of the women who attempt to avail of domestic violence shelter
beds are turned away in major American cities. These victims of domestic violence are often excluded from homelessness studies, despite the lack of livable conditions in their homes.
It Was a Wonderful Life
, a 1993
documentary film
narrated by Jodie Foster
, chronicles the lives of six articulate, educated, but otherwise hidden homeless women as they struggle from day to day.
Over the past decade or so, the availability and quality of data on homelessness has improved considerably, due in part to initiatives by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, is a Cabinet department in the Executive branch of the United States federal government...
), the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and several nongovernmental organizations working with homeless populations. Since 2007, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has issued an Annual Homeless Assessment Report, which reports to Congress the number of individuals and families who are homeless in the previous year, both sheltered and unsheltered, in order to standardized data and collection processes for government officials and service providers.
According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 643,067 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide as of January 2009. Additionally, about 1.56 million people used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program during the 12-month period between October 1, 2008 and September 30, 2009. This number suggests that roughly 1 in every 200 persons in the US used the shelter system at some point in that period.
According to the United States Conference of Mayors, the main cause is the lack of affordable housing
Affordable housing
Affordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
.
The four next primary causes are:
- mental illnessMental illnessA mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
or the lack of needed services, - substance abuseSubstance abuseA substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...
and lack of needed services. - low-paying jobs.
- Government policy - Child support enforcement keeping drivers licenses from citizens and other civil rights violations.
The minor causes cited by the mayors were:
- Prisoner release.
- UnemploymentUnemploymentUnemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
. - Domestic violenceDomestic violenceDomestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
. - PovertyPovertyPoverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
.
Definition
- an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence;
- and an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is--
- a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill);
- an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or
- a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.
Causes
The major causes of homelessness include:- The deinstitutionalization movement from the 1950s onwards in state mental healthMental healthMental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...
systems, to shift towards 'community-based' treatment of the mentally ill, as opposed to long-term commitment in institutions. - RedevelopmentRedevelopmentRedevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses.-Description:Variations on redevelopment include:* Urban infill on vacant parcels that have no existing activity but were previously developed, especially on Brownfield land, such as the redevelopment of an industrial site...
and gentrificationGentrificationGentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...
activities instituted by cities across the country through which low-income neighborhoods are declared blighted and demolished to make way for projects that generate higher property taxes and other revenue, creating a shortage of housing affordable to low-income working families, the elderly poor, and the disabled. - The failure of urban housing projects to provide safe, secure, and affordable housing to the poor.
- The economic crises and "stagflationStagflationIn economics, stagflation is a situation in which the inflation rate is high and the economic growth rate slows down and unemployment remains steadily high...
" of the 1970s, which caused high unemploymentUnemploymentUnemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
. Unlike European countries, US unemployment insurance does not allow unemployed insurance recipients to obtain job training/education while receiving benefits except under very limited situations. - The failure of the U.S. Department of Veterans AffairsUnited States Department of Veterans AffairsThe United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...
to provide effective mental health care and meaningful job training for many homeless veteranVeteranA veteran is a person who has had long service or experience in a particular occupation or field; " A veteran of ..."...
s, particularly those of the Vietnam WarVietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. - Foster home children are not given job training in school or at home. Without a means to make money, nearly half of foster children in the United States become homeless when they are released from foster care at age 18.
- Natural disasterNatural disasterA natural disaster is the effect of a natural hazard . It leads to financial, environmental or human losses...
s that destroy homes: hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, etc. Places of employment are often destroyed too, causing unemployment and transience. - People who have served time in prison, have abused drugs and alcohol, or have a history of mental illness find it difficult to impossible to find employment for years at a time because of the use of computer background checks by potential employers.
- According to the Institution of Housing in 2005, the U.S. Government has focused 42% more on foreign countries rather than homeless Americans, including homeless veterans.
- People who are hiding in order to evade law enforcement.
- Teenagers who flee or are thrown out by parents who disapprove of their child's sexual orientation. A 2010 study by the Center for American Progress shows that a disproportionately high number of homeless youth (between 20-40%) identify as LGBTQ..
According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the demand for emergency shelter in 270 U.S. cities increased 13% in 2001 and 25% in 2005. 22 percent of those requesting emergency shelter were turned away.
Traditionally single men have constituted the majority of the homeless. In the 1980s there was a sharp rise in the number of homeless families in certain parts of the United States; notably New York City. Most homeless families consist of a single mother and children. A significant number of homeless people are teenagers and young adults, mostly runaways or street children. A 1960 survey by Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
's poor neighborhoods found that 75% of the homeless were over 45 years old, and 87% were white. In 1986, 86% were under age 45, and 87% were minorities
Minority group
A minority is a sociological group within a demographic. The demographic could be based on many factors from ethnicity, gender, wealth, power, etc. The term extends to numerous situations, and civilizations within history, despite the misnomer of minorities associated with a numerical statistic...
.
According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development's 2008 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, the most common demographic features of all sheltered homeless people are: male, members of minority groups, older than age 31, and alone. More than two-fifths of sheltered homeless people have a disability. At the same time, sizable segments of the sheltered homeless population are white, non-Hispanic (38 percent), children (20 percent), or part of multi-person households (33 percent). Approximately 68 percent of the 1.6 million sheltered homeless people were homeless as individuals and 32 percent were persons in families.
In 2008 more than two-thirds of all sheltered homeless people were located in principal cities, with 32 percent located in suburban or rural jurisdictions. About two-fifths of people entering an emergency shelter or transitional housing program during 2008 came from another homeless situation (sheltered or unsheltered), two-fifths came from a housed situation (in their own or someone else's home), and the remaining one-fifth
were split between institutional settings or other situations such as hotels or motels. Most people had relatively short lengths of stay in emergency shelters: three-fifths stayed
less than a month, and a third stayed a week or less.
Statistics and demographics
Completely accurate and comprehensive statistics are difficult to acquire for any social study, but especially so when measuring the ambiguous hidden, and erratic reality of homelessness. All figures given are estimates. In addition, these estimates represent overall national averages; the proportions of specific homeless communities can vary substantially depending on local geography.2009 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress
Perhaps the most accurate, comprehensive, and current data on homelessness in the United States is reported annually by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in the Annual Homeless Assessment Report to CongressAnnual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress
Perhaps the most accurate and current data on homelessness in the United States is reported annually by the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress...
(AHAR), released in June of every year since 2007. The AHAR report relies on data from two sources: single-night, point-in-time counts of both sheltered and unsheltered homeless populations reported on the Continuum of Care applications to HUD; and counts of the sheltered homeless population over a full year provided by a sample of communities based on data in their local Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS).
Other statistics
Some estimates from various sources on the characteristics and number of homeless people:Total Number
- As many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year (1% of the entire U.S. population or 10% of its poor), and about 842,000 people in any given week. Most were homeless temporarily. The chronically homeless population (those with repeated episodes or who have been homeless for long periods) fell from 175,914 in 2005 to 123,833 in 2007.
Familial composition
- 40% are families with children—the fastest growing segment.
- 41% are single males.
- 14% are single females.
- 5% are minors unaccompanied by adults.
1.37 million (or 39%) of the total homeless population are children under the age of 18.
Marital status
- 24% are married.
- 76% are single.
- 67.5% are single males within the single percentage.
- 32.5% are single females within the single percentage.
Ethnicity
- 49% are African AmericanAfrican AmericanAfrican Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
(over-represented compared to 11% of general population). - 35% are CaucasianCaucasian raceThe term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...
(under-represented compared to 75% of general population). - 13% are HispanicHispanicHispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
(compared to 10% of general population). - 2% are Native AmericanNative Americans in the United StatesNative Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
(compared to 1% of general population). - 1% are Asian-American (under-represented compared to 4% of general population).
Health-concerns.
- 22% are considered to have serious mental illnessMental illnessA mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
es, or are disabled. - 30% have substance abuseSubstance abuseA substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...
problems. - 3% report having HIV/AIDS.
- 26% report acute health problems other than HIV/AIDS such as tuberculosisTuberculosisTuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, pneumoniaPneumoniaPneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
, or sexually transmitted infections. - 46% report chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or cancerCancerCancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. - 55% report having no health insuranceHealth insuranceHealth insurance is insurance against the risk of incurring medical expenses among individuals. By estimating the overall risk of health care expenses among a targeted group, an insurer can develop a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax, to ensure that money is...
(compared to 27% of general population). - 58% report having trouble getting enough food to eat.
Education
- 38% have less than a High School diplomaHigh school diplomaA high school diploma is a diploma awarded for the completion of high school. In the United States and Canada, it is considered the minimum education required for government jobs and higher education. An equivalent is the GED.-Past diploma styles:...
. - 34% have a High School diploma or equivalent (G.E.D.).
- 28% have more than a High School education.
Employment
- 44% report having worked in the past week.
- 13% have regular jobs.
- 50% receive less than $300 per month as income.
- 70% work on street corners, pan-handling or prostituting themselves.
Location.
- 71% reside in central cities.
- 21% are in suburbs.
- 9% are in ruralRuralRural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
areas.
Duration
- 80% of those who experience homelessness do so for less than 3 weeks. They typically have more personal, social, or economic resources to draw upon.
- 10% are homeless for up to two months. They cite lack of available or affordable housing as responsible for the delay.
- 10% are so called "chronic" and remain without housing for extended periods of time on a frequent basis. They typically struggle with mental illness, substance abuse, or both.
Pre-1960s
Many towns and cities had an area which contained the poor, transients, and afflicted, such as a "skid rowSkid row
A skid row or skid road is a run-down or dilapidated urban area with a large, impoverished population. The term originally referred literally to a path along which working men skidded logs. Its current sense appears to have originated in the Pacific Northwest...
". In New York City, for example, there was an area known as "the Bowery", traditionally, where alcoholics were to be found sleeping on the streets, bottle in hand. Rescue missions offering "soup, soap, and salvation", a phrase introduced by The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
, sprang up along the Bowery thoroughfare, including the oldest one, The Bowery Mission. The mission was founded in 1879 by the Rev. and Mrs. A.G. Ruliffson.
At the time the Bowery Mission was established it was located at 36 Bowery, a location that in an earlier time in New York City, played a role in the New York City Draft Riots, when the building was used as a saloon.
An examination of the Annual Reports for the first decade of the mission, and period New York City newspapers starting in 1881, suggest that an 1880 date for the mission is more likely than 1879. To cite examples from period newspapers, The New York Tribune's article, "The Bowery Mission, A Sketch of its Career", dated March 14, 1898 opens with "The Bowery Mission was started in 1880 at No.36 Bowery by a number of men who were interested in mission work." An even earlier article appearing in The New York Tribune on November 8, 1880, "A Bright Spot In The Darkness", declared "The Bowery Evangelical Mission, at No.36 Bowery, was opened yesterday afternoon with a prayer-meeting, at which some 150 persons were present." The present location of the Bowery Mission at 227-229 Bowery dates to 1909 when an abandoned coffin factory was converted to a mission.
In smaller towns, there were hobo
Hobo
A hobo is a term which is often applied to a migratory worker or homeless vagabond, often penniless. The term originated in the Western—probably Northwestern—United States during the last decade of the 19th century. Unlike 'tramps', who work only when they are forced to, and 'bums', who do not...
s, who temporarily lived near train tracks and hopped onto trains to various destinations. Especially following the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, a large number of homeless men formed part of a counterculture known as "hobohemia" all over America. This phenomenon re-surged in the 1930s during and after the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
Jacob Riis
Jacob Riis
Jacob August Riis was a Danish American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He is known for using his photographic and journalistic talents to help the impoverished in New York City; those impoverished New Yorkers were the subject of most of his prolific...
wrote about, documented, and photographed the poor and destitute, although not specifically the homeless, in New York City tenements in the late 19th century. His ground-breaking book, How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives
How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York was an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s...
, published in 1890, raised public awareness of living conditions in the slums, causing some changes in building codes and some social conditions.
1960s, 1970s
In the United States, during the late 1970s, the deinstitutionalization of patients from state psychiatric hospitals was a precipitating factor which seeded the homeless population, especially in urban areas such as New York City.The Community Mental Health Act
Community Mental Health Act
The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 was an act to provide federal funding for community mental health centers in the United States...
of 1963 was a pre-disposing factor in setting the stage for homelessness in the United States. Long term psychiatric patients were released from state hospitals into Single Room Occupancies
Single Room Occupancy
A single room occupancy is a multiple-tenant building that houses one or two people in individual rooms , or to the single room dwelling itself...
and sent to community health centers for treatment and follow-up. It never quite worked out properly and this population largely was found living in the streets soon thereafter with no sustainable support system.
In 1965, The Diggers
Diggers (theater)
The Diggers were a radical community-action group of activists and Improv actors operating from 1966–68, based in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Their politics were such that they have sometimes been categorized as "left-wing." More accurately, they were "community anarchists"...
, a community-action group dedicated to the concept of everything being free of charge, established soup kitchens and free health-care facilities in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. This also began a movement of people that began to travel for political reasons as well as for personal choices. This is where the beginnings of the American nomadic caravans became popular, living homelessly, but happily.
In 1969 the Pine Street Inn was founded by Paul Sullivan on Pine Street in Boston's Chinatown district
Chinatown, Boston
The only historically Chinese area in New England, Chinatown, Boston is a neighborhood located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Centered on Beach Street, the neighborhood borders Boston Common, Downtown Crossing, the South End, and the Southeast Expressway/Massachusetts Turnpike.Part of it...
and began caring for homeless destitute alcoholics. In 1980, it moved to larger facilities on Harrison Avenue in Boston due to growing needs of the homeless population.
In 1974, Kip Tiernan
Kip Tiernan
Kip Tiernan, also known as Mary Jane Tiernan, was a social activist. She was born in Connecticut and raised by her grandmother, and came to Boston in her early 20s...
founded Rosie's Place
Rosie's Place
Rosie’s Place is a sanctuary for poor and homeless women located in Boston, Massachusetts.- History :It was founded in 1974, by Kip Tiernan and was the first shelter specifically for poor and homeless women in the United States...
in Boston, the first drop-in and emergency shelter for women in the United States, in response to the increasing numbers of needy women throughout the country.
In 1979, a New York City lawyer, Robert Hayes, brought a class action suit before the courts, Callahan v. Carey, against the City and State, arguing for a person's state constitutional "right to shelter". It was settled as a consent decree in August 1981. The City and State agreed to provide board and shelter to all homeless men who met the need standard for welfare or who were homeless by certain other standards. By 1983 this right was extended to homeless women.
1980s
The History of the United States (1980–1991) illustrates that this was a time when there was economic distress, high unemployment, and was the period when chronic homelessness became a modern problem on a larger scale. In 1980 federal funds accounted for 22% of big city budgets, but by 1989 the same such aid composed only 6% of urban revenue (part of a larger 60% decrease in federal spending to support local governments). It is largely (although not exclusively) in these urban areas that homelessness became widespread and reached unprecedented numbers.Most notable were cuts to federal low-income housing programs. An advocacy group claims that Congress halved the budget for public housing
Public housing
Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...
and Section 8
Section 8 (housing)
Section 8 of the United States Housing Act of 1937 , as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of approximately 3.1 million low-income households...
(the government's housing voucher subsidization program) and that between the years of 1980 and 1989 HUD's budget authority was reduced from $74 billion to $19 billion. Such alleged changes is claimed to have resulted in an inadequate supply of affordable housing
Affordable housing
Affordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
to meet the growing demand of low-income populations. In 1970 there were 300,000 more low-cost rental units (6.5 million) than low-income renter households (6.2 million). By 1985 the advocacy group claimed that the number of low-cost units had fallen to 5.6 million, and the number of low-income renter households had grown to 8.9 million, a disparity of 3.3 million units
The 1980s also saw a continuing trend of deinstitutionalizing mental-health hospitals. It is believed that a large percentage of these released patients ended up in the homeless system.
Many existing shelters and soup kitchens had to expand their facilities to accommodate the larger number of homeless. For example, in 1980, the Pine Street Inn had to move to larger facilities on Harrison Avenue in Boston and in 1984, Saint Francis House
Saint Francis House (Boston)
Saint Francis House is a nonprofit, nonsectarian, ecumenical daytime shelter, primarily for the homeless, located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, and founded in the early 1980s...
had to move its operation from the St. Anthony Shrine on Arch Street to an entire ten floor building on Boylston Street
Boylston Street
Boylston Street is the name of a major east-west thoroughfare in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. Another Boylston Street runs through Boston's western suburbs....
.
In response to the ensuing homelessness crisis of the 1980s, concerned citizens across the country demanded that the federal government provide assistance. After many years of advocacy and numerous revisions, President Reagan signed into law the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 is a United States federal law that provides federal money for homeless shelter programs. It was the first significant federal legislative response to homelessness, and was passed and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on July 22, 1987...
in 1987—this remains the only piece of federal legislation that allocates funding to the direct service of homeless people.
By the mid-1980s, there was also a dramatic increase in family homelessness. Tied into this was an increasing number of impoverished and runaway children, teenagers, and young adults, which created a new sub-stratum of the homeless population.
1990s
The [McKinney-Vento Act] paved the way for service providers in the coming years. During the 1990s homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and other supportive services sprouted up in cities and towns across the nation. However, despite these efforts and the dramatic economic growth marked by this decade, homeless numbers remained stubbornly high. It became increasingly apparent that simply providing services to alleviate the symptoms of homelessness (i.e. shelter beds, hot meals, psychiatric counseling, etc.), although needed, were not successful at solving the root causes of homelessness.2000s
Throughout this decade, homeless service providers and the Federal government have been able to reduce chronic homelessness and homelessness among Veterans with targeted efforts and interagency cooperation on initiatives like the HUD-VASH program. The 2000s, however, saw a new population of those experiencing homelessness: families with children. While an emerging problem at the beginning of the decade, the problem continued to persist through 2010. At the close of the decade the trend continued unabated, with the number of individuals in homeless families increasing from 431,541 in 2007 to 535,447 in 2009.Another emerging concern at the onset of this decade was the disproportionate representation of the LGBTQ community among the population of unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness. In 2002, activist and youth advocate Carl Siciliano founded the Ali Forney Center—a homeless shelter in New York City that is dedicated specifically to providing aid and shelter to homeless and at-risk LGBTQ youth. The center takes its name from a queer teenager who lived on the streets for much of the 1990s. While homeless, Ali Forney protected other LGBTQ homeless youth by performing HIV prevention and awareness work. He also urged the NYPD to investigate the murders of several queer homeless youth whom he had befriended during his time on the street. In 1997, Ali Forney was himself murdered by an as-of-yet unidentified attacker. However, Ali's outreach and advocacy work inspired Carl Siciliano to found an organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ homeless youth in New York. The Ali Forney Center provides both emergency and transitional housing for queer homeless youth, whose numbers account for anywhere between 20-40% of the 2.1 million homeless youth in America. The percentage of LGBTQ homeless youth is much higher than that of the general population, which runs between 5-10%. The work of the Ali Forney Center is one example of the ways that the social service community has responded to the needs of growing sub-populations of those experiencing homelessness.
In 2001, the NAEH
National Alliance to End Homelessness
The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a United States based organization addressing the issue of homelessness. The Alliance provides data and research to policymakers and elected officials in order to inform policy debates and educate the public and opinion leaders nationwide.In March of...
along with the U.S. ICH
Interagency Council on Homelessness
The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness is a United States independent federal agency within the executive branch and is composed of 19 Cabinet secretaries and agency heads. The current chairperson is Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis; Department of Health and Human Services...
encouraged communities to create and implement state and local strategic plans to prevent and end homelessness, focusing on Housing First
Housing first
Housing First, also known as "rapid re-housing", is a relatively recent innovation in human service programs and social policy regarding treatment of the homeless and is an alternative to a system of emergency shelter/transitional housing progressions...
initiatives to house the chronically homeless population who have many barriers to stability, a cost-benefit analysis of state- and local-level resources, best practice engagement and service innovations, and prevention. Many communities and states across the country have created these plans and have set up measurable goals and targets for the short- and long-term.
In February 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009, by President Barack Obama.To...
, which was part of the President's effort to save or create 3.5 million jobs in the United States to mitigate the effects of the economic recession begun in 2008. Part of the Act addressed homelessness prevention, in which he allocated an additional $1.5 billion to HUD for the "Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program (HPRP)." The purpose of HPRP was to assist individuals and families who are otherwise healthy and not chronically homeless in escaping homelessness or preventing homelessness of the vulnerable population. HPRP grant monies were distributed to localities in the same formula used for Emergency Shelter Grants (ESG) in amounts not to exceed $500,000 and must be used within three years. Primary grantee activities include short-term and medium-term rental assistance and housing relocation and stabilization services, including mediation, credit counseling, security or utility deposits, utility payments, moving cost assistance, and case management.
On May 20, 2009, President Obama signed the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act into Public Law (Public Law 111-22 or "PL 111-22"), reauthorizing HUD
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, is a Cabinet department in the Executive branch of the United States federal government...
's Homeless Assistance programs. It was part of the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009
Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009
The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 is a recently enacted public law in the United States. On May 20, 2009, the Senate bill was signed into law by President Barack Obama...
. The HEARTH act allows for the prevention of homelessness, rapid re-housing, consolidation of housing programs, and new homeless categories. In the eighteen months after the bill's signing, HUD had to begin implementing the new McKinney-compliant programs. In late 2009, some homeless advocacy organizations, such as the National Coalition for the Homeless, reported and published perceived problems with the HEARTH Act of 2009 as a HUD McKinney-Vento Reauthorization bill, especially with regard to privacy, definitional ineligibility, community roles, and restrictions on eligibile activities. However, at the close of 2010 HUD reported that many communities had successfully used HPRP funds to assist those in need in their communities, and reported that the program prevented homelessness for nearly 750,000 Americans.
The Federal government contains one agency that focuses on the issue of homelessness in America, and it has had a much greater role in the policy community since its revitalization at the beginning of the decade and its continued appropriations in the HEARTH Act. The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH),a federal agency contained in the Executive Branch, was established in 1987 as a requirement of the McKinney-Vento Act of 1987. Since its revitalization in 2001 as an agency independent from the Executive Office of the President and reauthorization in 2009, USICH serves as the coordinating body of all 19 federal agencies and their programs and initiatives to serve the homeless population. Its mission is to, "coordinate the Federal response to homelessness and to create a national partnership at every lever of government and with the private sector to reduce and end homelessness in the nation while maximizing the effectiveness of the Federal Government in contributing to the end of homelessness." USICH has taken on a much greater role in Federal-level initiatives to end homelessness in the United States since exiting the Executive Office of the President and notably since the enactment of the HEARTH Act, in which it was mandated that USICH provide leadership in developing a national strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness. Since its authorization as an independent agency, USICH been able to work with stakeholders across all government sectors and at all levels to promote collaboration and best practices within the homeless service provider community.
2010s
The first year of the new decade saw a renewed commitment from the Federal government in its efforts to prevent and end homelessness with the creation and release of Opening Doors: The Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. Opening Doors is a publication of the U.S. Interagency Council on HomelessnessInteragency Council on Homelessness
The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness is a United States independent federal agency within the executive branch and is composed of 19 Cabinet secretaries and agency heads. The current chairperson is Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis; Department of Health and Human Services...
, which worked with all Federal agencies and many state and local stakeholders on its creation and vision, setting a ten year path for the nation on preventing and ending all types of homelessness. This Plan was presented to the President and Congress in a White House Ceremony on June 22, 2010.
The Vision of the Plan is: "No one should experience homelessness - no one should be without a safe, stable place to call home."
This document focuses on four main goals:
- Finish the job of ending chronic homelessness in the next five years (2015)
- Prevent and end homelessness among Veterans in five years (2015)
- Prevent and end homelessness for families, children and youth in ten years (2020)
- Set a path to ending all types of homelessness
The most recent Point-In-Time Count by HUD
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, is a Cabinet department in the Executive branch of the United States federal government...
took place the second two weeks of January 2011, and data reported at that time and gathered from Continuum of Care providers in local communities will be used to compile the 2010 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to be released in the middle of 2011.
Causes
"In 2004 the United States Conference of Mayors... surveyed the mayors of major cities on the extent and causes of urban homelessness and most of the mayors named the lack of affordable housing as a cause of homelessness.... The next three causes identified by mayors, in rank order, were mental illness or the lack of needed services, substance abuse and lack of needed services, and low-paying jobs. The lowest ranking cause, cited by five mayors, was prisoner reentry. Other causes cited were unemployment, domestic violence, and poverty."Housing opportunities:
Many workers cannot afford to live where they work, and even in moderately priced communities housing costs require a large portion of household income.
Personal factors
- Untreated mental illnessMental illnessA mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological or behavioral pattern generally associated with subjective distress or disability that occurs in an individual, and which is not a part of normal development or culture. Such a disorder may consist of a combination of affective, behavioural,...
, and disabilityDisabilityA disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
can cause individuals to become paranoidParanoiaParanoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
, anxious, or depressedClinical depressionMajor depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
, making it difficult or impossible to maintain employment, pay bills, or keep supportive social relationships. - Substance abuseSubstance abuseA substance-related disorder is an umbrella term used to describe several different conditions associated with several different substances .A substance related disorder is a condition in which an individual uses or abuses a...
can drain financial resources, cause job or housing loss, and erode supportive social relationships. Substance abuse is quite prevalent in the homeless population. - Many people (especially women and often with children) who flee from domestic violenceDomestic violenceDomestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
often must quickly adapt to massive life changes. Many find it extremely difficult to secure a new place of residence and/or a job. - Institutional release. Most individuals being discharged from prison have few resources to "get back on their feet" and have eroded personal contacts that may provide support. Youths who "age out" of systems such as foster careFoster careFoster care is the term used for a system in which a minor who has been made a ward is placed in the private home of a state certified caregiver referred to as a "foster parent"....
often find themselves without needed support networks.
Lastly, it should be mentioned that some people find themselves homeless due to unexpected extenuating circumstances:
- Natural disasters: Many people lose their homes to any variety of natural catastrophes including but not limited to: floods, forest fires, storms, and earthquakes. In 2005 hurricanes Katrina and Rita displaced over 1 million Americans. Tornadoes destroyed entire towns in Tennessee in 2006.
- Unexpected emergencies: A variety of people find themselves unable to cope with any number of the following sudden tragedies: being laid off from a long-term place of employment; losing their place of residence to an accidental fire; serious bodily injuries; discovery of terminal illnesses or diseases; loss of family member(s). These situations usually result not only in significant monetary expenses, but also in severe psychological and emotional hardships.
More affordable housing
Homeless individuals report a lack of affordable housing
Affordable housing
Affordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
as the number one reason for becoming homeless. This inadequacy must be remedied in order to get people off the streets and out of shelters. Many non-profit organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
s are in operation to serve this need—for example, the National Low Income Housing Coalition—but most lack the funding necessary to create enough housing. Several proposed policy measures are designed to secure such funding, such as the National Housing Trust Fund, but these have not been signed into law.
Comprehensive health care
Homeless individuals report mental illness as being the number three reason for becoming or staying homeless. Such illnesses are often closely linked with the fourth reason—substance abuse—and therefore it is generally accepted that both of these issues should be treated simultaneously. Although many medical, psychiatric, and counseling services exist to address these needs, it is commonly believed that without the support of reliable and stable housing such treatments remain ineffective. Furthermore, in the absence of a universal health-care plan, many of those in need cannot afford such services. Legislation such as the Bringing America Home Act, if enacted, would provide comprehensive and available treatment for all.
Paradigm shift
A significant paradigm has occurred in homeless services over the past five years which has begun to shift the emphasis from "managing the problem of homelessness" with emergency shelters, soup kitchens and health clinic to ending homelessness by housing individuals who are experiencing homelessness. In 2000, the National Alliance to End Homelessness http://www.endhomelessness.org/ released "A Plan, Not a Dream: How to End Homelessness in Ten Years" which encouraged communities to develop and implement 10 year plans to end homelessness in their communities.
Key effective programs include:
- Shelter Plus Care - a federal program that provides housing subsidies and are matched by local funds to provide long-term supportive services (typically case management). Experience demonstrated that many individuals who have been homeless for a significant time often lose their housing shortly after placement. The Shelter Plus Care program provides long-term supports including working with the landlord to keep the individual housed.
- Housing FirstHousing firstHousing First, also known as "rapid re-housing", is a relatively recent innovation in human service programs and social policy regarding treatment of the homeless and is an alternative to a system of emergency shelter/transitional housing progressions...
- a service paradigm that assumes that individuals who are homeless are "ready" to be housed immediately and with appropriate supports can retain their housing. The Pathways to HousingPathways to HousingPathways to Housing is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1992 by . It is the mission of Pathways to Housing to transform individual lives by ending homelessness and supporting recovery....
project in New York demonstrated a five-year housing retention rate of 88 percent among formerly homeless individuals with serious mental illness. Homeless people seeking help are often required to participate in substance abuse, mental health, and life skills programs of a year or more regardless of whether those are factors in their case. Many people only need decent housing to get back on their feet. Central City Concern's (Portland, Oregon) Shoreline Project allows homeless unemployed men to move into SRO type single person studios and find a job within 70 days; it's been a great success with expected expansion of the program in 2007.
- Assertive Outreach - a form of engagement and outreach that emphasizes building a bond of trust between the case worker and the individual. Engagement is highly individualized with the pace dictated by the individual in need. Case workers do not force rules, regulations or program services until they are requested. Typically used to engage homeless, mentally ill individuals.
In Boston, Massachusetts, in September 2007, an outreach to the homeless was initiated in the Boston Common, after some arrests and shootings, and in anticipation of the cold winter ahead. This outreach targets homeless people who would normally spend their sleeping time on the Boston Common, and tries to get them into housing, trying to skip the step of an emergency shelter. Applications for Boston Housing Authority were being handed out and filled out and submitted. This is an attempt to enact by outreach the Housing First initiative, federally mandated. Boston's Mayor, Thomas Menino
Thomas Menino
Thomas Michael "Tom" Menino is the mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, United States and the city's first Italian-American mayor...
, was quoted as saying "The solution to homelessness is permanent housing". Still, this is a very controversial strategy, especially if the people are not able to sustain a house with proper community, health, substance counseling, and mental health supportive programs.
Effects on education/homeless students
Homelessness has a tremendous effect on a child's education. Education of homeless youth is thought to be essential in breaking the cycle of poverty. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act mandates equal opportunity to a free public education to homeless students. This act is supposed to break down the barriers homeless students have to receiving an education. These barriers include residency restriction, medical record verification, and transportation issues. Once a student surpasses these barriers, they are still subject to the stigma of being homeless, and the humiliation they feel because of their situation. Some families do not report their homelessness, while others are unaware of the opportunities available to them. Many report that maintaining a stable school environment helps the students because it's the only thing that remains normal. Many homeless students fall behind their peers in school due to behavioral disorders, and lack of attendance in school.Since the housing market fall out there has been a rise is homeless students. NAEHCY or the National Association for the Education of Homeless for Children and Youth, has reported that there has been a rise in homeless student as much as 99% within a three month period (San Diego).
Of 1,636 schools, 330 reported no increase, 847 reported an increase of half, and 459 reported an increase of 25% or more. Due to the provisions of the McKinney-Vento Act many school districts are struggling to provide the necessary services, such as rising transportation needs and the greater severity of services.
One of the biggest challenges our district faces is providing transportation to students who are experiencing homelessness. There are few approaches that our district can utilize to provide transportation for these students. Our city has only one taxi cab service and no public bus system. Our cab company is small and simply cannot fulfill all of our transportation requests. When it's possible, we add students to existing bus routes or set up a contractual agreement with the student's parent/guardian. However, there have been many situations where none of these options have worked. Another challenge our district faces is providing proper outer-wear for students who are homeless. Being that we live in central Wisconsin and have long, cold winters, all students need proper outerwear to go outside. Proper outerwear includes snow boots, hat, mittens, snow pants, and a winter jacket that has a working zipper or buttons on it. This expense adds up quickly and is hard to provide to the increasing number of homeless students.
This is especially worrisome since homeless students are 1) 1.5 times more likely to perform below grade level in reading; 2)1.5 times more likely to perform below grade level in spelling; and 3) 2.5 times more likely to perform below grade level in math.
There are a few worries that there will be false reports of homeless students, but mostly it's not an issue.
Public attitudes
Many advocates for the homeless contend that a key difficulty is the social stigma surrounding homelessness. There is anecdotal evidence that many Americans complain about the presence of homeless people, blame them for their situation, and feel that their requests for money or support (usually via beggingBegging
Begging is to entreat earnestly, implore, or supplicate. It often occurs for the purpose of securing a material benefit, generally for a gift, donation or charitable donation...
) are unjustified. In the 1990s, particularly, many observers and media articles spoke of "compassion fatigue
Compassion fatigue
Compassion fatigue is a condition characterised by a gradual lessening of compassion over time. It is common among trauma victims and individuals that work directly with trauma victims. It was first diagnosed in nurses in the 1950s...
" a belief that the public had grown weary of this seemingly intractable problem.
Public opinion surveys show relatively little support for this view, however. A 1995 paper in the American Journal of Community Psychology concluded that "although the homeless are clearly stigmatized, there is little evidence to suggest that the public has lost compassion and is unwilling to support policies to help homeless people." A Penn State study in 2004 concluded that "familiarity breeds sympathy" and greater support for addressing the problem.
A 2007 survey of New Yorkers found 67 percent said most homeless people were without shelter because of "circumstances beyond their control." More than one-third (36 percent) said they worried about becoming homeless themselves, with 15 percent saying they were "very worried." The survey by the nonpartisan group Public Agenda found support for investments in prevention, rental assistance and permanent housing.
Public Agenda has also concluded, however, that the public's sympathy has limits. In a 2002 national survey, the organization found 74 percent say the police should leave a homeless person alone if he or she is not bothering anyone. Yet 71 percent say the police should move the homeless if they are keeping customers away from a shopping area and 51 percent say the homeless should be moved if they are driving other people away from a public park.
Homeless assistance programs
The homeless community of the United States is aided in many ways from governmental and non-governmental oraganizations. Non-governmental organizations help the homeless by advocating or by physical and financial aid. Organizations like the [National Alliance to End homelessness] go to government officials and offices to speak on behalf of the homeless community calling for policy changes or for the creation of policy to help end homelessness. Government agencies respond. The following programs and policies attack the phenomenon of homelessness, provide help to the homeless, and prevent further growth of the homeless population.Programs
Many programs that are designed to assist the homeless population have incorporated some type of housing program for their clients. Whether it is a transitional, permanent or even emergency housing program, the assistance is often provided for a very low cost and maybe even free. In the United States each year, there are around 3.5 million people who live their lives without shelter or a stable occupation. For 2006 alone, $28.5 billion was allotted to homeless programs ran through HUD (Housing and Urban Development), $1 billion was given for Section 8 housingSection 8 (housing)
Section 8 of the United States Housing Act of 1937 , as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of approximately 3.1 million low-income households...
, and $1.4 billion was used for Homeless Assistance Grants. As one example, Volunteers of America
Volunteers of America
Volunteers of America, based in Alexandria, Virginia, is a national, nonprofit, faith-based human services organization providing support programs to more than two million people throughout the United States each year...
is an agency that believes preventing family homelessness is a critical part of their organization. Through them, transitional housing and emergency shelters are available to those who are in desperate need.
Housing
The two main types of housing programs provided for homeless people are:- Transitional
- Transitional housing programs are operated with one goal in mind – to help individuals and families obtain permanent housing as quickly as possible. Transitional housing programs assist homeless for a fixed amount of time or until they are able to obtain housing on their own and function successfully in the community, or whichever comes first.
- Permanent
- For a significant number of homeless Americans with mental or physical impairments, often coupled with drug and/or alcohol use issues, long-term homelessness can only be ended by providing permanent housing coupled with intensive supportive services. Permanent housing provides a "base" for people to move out of poverty.
Some shelters and associated charitable foundations have bought buildings and real estate to develop into permanent housing for the homeless in lieu of transitional Housing.
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
United States Department of Housing and Urban Development
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, is a Cabinet department in the Executive branch of the United States federal government...
and Veterans Administration
United States Department of Veterans Affairs
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...
have a special Section 8
Section 8 (housing)
Section 8 of the United States Housing Act of 1937 , as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of approximately 3.1 million low-income households...
housing voucher program called VASH (Veterans Administration Supported Housing), or HUD-VASH, which gives out a certain number of Section 8 subsidized housing vouchers to eligible homeless and otherwise vulnerable US armed forces veterans.
Substance abuse prevention
Without supportive services, housing is not often enough to end homelessness. Various agencies, in fact all homeless prevention agencies and programs include substance abuse recovery and prevention programs. Objectives are to provide substance abuse counseling and access to treatment centers.
Self-sufficiency
For a significant number of homeless Americans with mental or physical impairments, often coupled with drug and/or alcohol use issues, long-term homelessness can only be ended by providing permanent housing coupled with intensive supportive services.
Policies
There are several policies dealing with homelessness. In 1980 the government decided to start sending funding to the homeless, but it was not until 1984 that shelters were built to accommodate and feed them. As it was shown though seventy percent required the homeless to attend a religious ceremony and spend only a couple of nights there. In the 1987 McKinney Act the problem with homelessness became known as a huge social problem. Later on, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (P.L. 107-110) amended the program explicitly to prohibit states that receive McKinney-Vento funds from segregating homeless students from non-homeless students, except for short periods of time for health and safety emergencies or to provide temporary, special, supplementary services. The Chronic Homelessness Initiative. The Bush Administration established a national goal of ending chronic homelessness in ten years, by 2012. The idea of a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness began as a part of a 10-year plan to end homelessness in general adopted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) in 2000. The following year, then-Secretary Martinez announced HUD's commitment to ending chronic homelessness at the NAEH annual conference. In 2002, as a part of his FY2003 budget, President Bush made "ending chronic homelessness in the next decade a top objective." The bi-partisan, congressionally mandated, Millennial Housing Commission, in its Report to Congress in 2002, included ending chronic homelessness in 10 years among its principal recommendations. By 2003, the Interagency Council on Homelessness had been re-engaged and charged with pursuing the President's 10-year plan. The Administration has recently undertaken some collaborative efforts to reach its goal of ending chronic homelessness in 10 years. On October 1, 2003, the Administration announced the award of over $48 million in grants aimed at serving the needs of the chronically homeless through two initiatives. The "Ending Chronic Homelessness through Employment and Housing" http://www.dol.gov/odep/programs/homeless.htm initiative was a collaborative grant offered jointly by HUD http://www.hud.gov/ and the Department of Labor (DOL) http://www.dol.gov/. The initiative offered $10 million from HUD and $3.5 million from DOL to help the chronically homeless in five communities gain access to employment and permanent housing. Section 8 is the core housing program that helps extremely low-income families accommodate the gap between their incomes below 30 percent of the median income for each community. The government assists homeless families by awarding grants and vouchers. Vouchers are available to the families who are most needy and they are used to pay for housing found in the private market. Currently there are policy changes in who receives vouchers and there will be a reduction in the amount of vouchers granted to the homeless population.On May 20, 2009, President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
signed the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act of 2009. The HEARTH Act amends and reauthorizes the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 is a United States federal law that provides federal money for homeless shelter programs. It was the first significant federal legislative response to homelessness, and was passed and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on July 22, 1987...
with substantial changes. The HEARTH Act of 2009 consolidated HUD’s competitive grant programs, created a Rural Housing Stability Program, changed HUD’s definition of homelessness and chronic homelessness, supplied a simplified match requirement, increased prevention resources and increased in the emphasis on performance.The primary purpose of the legislation was to provide principle definitions regarding homelessness. The following terms: "homeless," "homeless individual," "homeless person," and "homeless individual with a disability."
Housing First
Housing FirstHousing first
Housing First, also known as "rapid re-housing", is a relatively recent innovation in human service programs and social policy regarding treatment of the homeless and is an alternative to a system of emergency shelter/transitional housing progressions...
is a relatively recent innovation that has met with success in providing housing to homeless people with substance abuse problems or mental health issues. Housing First allows homeless men and women to be taken directly off the street into private community-based apartments, without requiring treatment first. This allows the homeless to return to some sense of normalcy, from which it is believed that they are better-poised to tackle their addictions or sicknesses. The relapse rate through these types of programs is lower than that of conventional homeless programs.
It was initiated by the federal government's Interagency Council on Homelessness. It asks cities to come up with a plan to end chronic homelessness. In this direction, there is the belief that if homeless people are given independent housing to start off with, with some proper social supports, then there would be no need for emergency homeless shelters, which it considers a good outcome. This is a very controversial position. There are many complications of this kind of program and these must be dealt with to make such an initiative work successfully in the middle to long term.
Criminalization of homelessness
"Practices that criminalize homelessness do nothing to address the underlying causes of homelessness. Instead, they exacerbate the problem." Measures passed "prohibit activities such as sleeping/camping, eating, sitting, and begging in public spaces, usually including criminal penalties for violation of these laws." Violators of such laws typically incur criminal penalties, which result in fines and/or incarceration.In April 2006 the U.S. 9th District Court ruled that "making it a crime to be homeless by charging them with a crime is in violation of the 8th and 14th Amendments." http://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=OCLGetCaseDetail&format=FULL&sourceID=gdjd&searchTerm=eKSa.XQEa.aadi.Yebg&searchFlag=y&l1loc=FCLOW
The City could not expressly criminalize the status of homelessness by making it a crime to be homeless without violating the Eighth Amendment, nor can it criminalize acts that are an integral aspect of that status. Because there is substantial and undisputed evidence that the number of homeless persons in Los Angeles far exceeds the number of available shelter beds at all times, including on the nights of their arrest or citation, Los Angeles has encroached upon Appellants' Eighth Amendment protections by criminalizing the unavoidable act of sitting, lying or sleeping at night while being involuntarily homeless.
The defense encompasses the very difficulties that Jones posits here: sleeping on the streets because alternatives were inadequate and economic forces were primarily to blame for his predicament. Id. at 390. Jones argues that he and other homeless people are not willing or able to pursue such a defense because the costs of pleading guilty are so low and the risks and challenges of pleading innocent are substantial.
- id. at 568 n.31
(Fortas, J., dissenting); the Eighth Amendment prohibits the City from punishing involuntary sitting, lying, or sleeping on public sidewalks that is an unavoidable consequence of being human and homeless without shelter in the City of Los Angeles.
By our decision, we in no way dictate to the City that it must provide sufficient shelter for the homeless, or allow anyone who wishes to sit, lie, or sleep on the streets of Los Angeles at any time and at any place within the City. All we hold is that, so long as there is a greater number of homeless individuals in Los Angeles than the number of available beds, the City may not enforce section 41.18(d) at all times and places throughout the City against homeless individuals for involuntarily sitting, lying, and sleeping in public.
However, on October 15, 2007, the Court vacated its Opinion when, on appeal the parties settled the case out of court.http://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=OCLGetCaseDetail&format=FULL&sourceID=gdjd&searchTerm=eQYD.jZja.UYGY.EcjT&searchFlag=y&l1loc=FCLOW
In August 2007, in Boston, Massachusetts, the city took action to keep loiterers, including the homeless, off the Boston Common overnight, after a series of violent crimes and drug arrests.
A federal appeals court ruled an anti-homeless
Anti-homelessness legislation
Anti-homelessness legislation can take two forms; legislation that aims to help and re-house homeless people, and legislation that is intended to criminalize homelessness and/or send the homeless to homeless shelters compulsively.-International law:...
policy in Los Angeles as unconstitutional.
Crimes against homeless people
Recent years have seen a growing number of violent acts committed upon people experiencing homelessness—the rate of such documented crimes in 2005 was 30% higher than of those in 1999. 75% of all perpetrators are under the age of 25.In recent years, largely due to the efforts of the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) and academic researchers, the problem of violence against the homeless has gained national attention. In their report: Hate, Violence, and Death on Mainstreet USA, the NCH reported 386 violent acts committed against homeless persons over the period, among which 155 were lethal. The NCH called those acts hate crimes (they retain the definition of the American Congress). They insist that so called bumfight videos disseminate hate against the homeless and dehumanize them.
The Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism (CSHE) at California State University
California State University
The California State University is a public university system in the state of California. It is one of three public higher education systems in the state, the other two being the University of California system and the California Community College system. It is incorporated as The Trustees of the...
, San Bernardino in conjunction with the NCH found that 155 homeless people were killed by non-homeless people in "hate killings", while 76 people were killed in all the other traditional hate crime homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
categories such as race and religion, combined. The CSHE contends that negative and degrading portrayals of the homeless contribute to a climate where violence takes place.
Various studies and surveys indicate that homeless people have a much higher criminal victimization rate than the non-homeless, but that most incidents never get reported to authorities. On October 1, 2006 CBS News 60 Minutes telecast a story on "thrill" violence against the homeless and "Bumfights" videos. A 2007 study found that the number of violent crimes against the homeless is increasing.
Los Angeles
The Los Angeles region is thought to have the largest concentration of homeless persons in the country and is considered the homelessness capital of the USA. In its biannual census of 2009, the County counted more than 48,000 homeless persons living in the county at any given night. One hundred thousands persons are expected to be homeless at least one night during the year. A 50-block area in downtown Los Angeles called Skid Row (5,131) has a homeless population nearly as large as the homeless population of San Francisco (5,823). Hollywood and the city of Santa MonicaSanta Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...
also suffer from visible homelessness. Los Angeles, of course, has approximately 10 times the population of San Francisco, so proportionately, San Francisco has a greater population of homeless persons.
In 2009, the author Geoffrey Neil wrote a novel, Dire Means, whose underlying premise was about the homeless situation in Santa Monica, California.
San Francisco
The city of San Francisco, California, due to its mild climate and its social programs that have provided cash payments for homeless individuals, is often considered the homelessness capital of the United States. The city's homeless population has been estimated at 7,000-10,000 people, of which approximately 3,000-5,000 refuse shelter. The city spends $200 million a year on homelessness related programs. On May 3, 2004 http://www.sfgov.org/site/dhs_index.asp?id=13701, San Francisco officially began an attempt to scale back the scope of its homelessness problem by changing its strategy from cash payments to the "Care Not CashCare Not Cash
Care Not Cash was a San Francisco ballot measure approved by the voters in November 2002. Primarily sponsored by Gavin Newsom, then a San Francisco supervisor, it was designed to cut the money given in the General Assistance programs to homeless people in exchange for shelters and other forms of...
" plan. At the same time, grassroots organizations within the Bay Area such as the Suitcase Clinic
Suitcase Clinic
The Suitcase Clinic is a humanitarian student organization that has offered free services and supplies to the uninsured, homeless and low-income communities of the San Francisco Bay Area since 1989.-Overview:...
work to provide referrals for housing and employment to the homeless population. In 2010, a city ordinance was passed which will disallow sitting and lying down on public sidewalks for most of the day, from 7am until 11pm.
Chicago
The city of Chicago, Illinois is also noted for its number of homeless people. Over the years, Chicago has gained a reputation as the city with the most homeless people, rivaling Los Angeles and New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, although no statistical data has backed this up. The reputation stems primarily from the subjective number of beggars found on the streets rather than any sort of objective statistical census data. Indeed, from statistical data, Chicago has far less homeless per capita than peers New York, and Los Angeles, or other major cities such as Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Boston, among others, with only 5,922 homeless recorded in a one night count taken in 2007.
Denver, Colorado
In Denver, ColoradoDenver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
, Mayor John Hickenlooper
John Hickenlooper
John Wright Hickenlooper is an American politician and current Governor of Colorado. A Democrat, he was previously the Mayor of Denver, Colorado from 2003 to 2011.-Early life, education and career:...
has made dealing with the issues that underlie homelessness a top priority on his Mayoral agenda, speaking heavily on the issue during his first "State of the City" address in 2003. While Denver's homeless population is much lower than other major cities, the homeless residents have often suffered when without shelter during Denver's infamously cold winters. Now officials have said that this number has risen over the past few years.http://www.denvergov.org/Homelessness/default.asp
Indianapolis, Indiana
In http://www.indygov.org/home.htm Indianapolis, IndianaIndianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
, as many as 2,200 people are homeless on any given night, and as many as 15,000 individuals over the course of a year. Indianapolis is notable among cities of similar size for having only faith-based shelters, such as the century-old http://www.wmm.org Wheeler Mission. In 2001, Mayor Bart Peterson
Bart Peterson
Barton "Bart" R. Peterson is the former mayor of the U.S city of Indianapolis, Indiana. A Democrat first elected in 1999, he was defeated in 2007 in a bid for a third term in what was widely viewed as a huge upset.A lifelong Indianapolis resident, Peterson graduated from North Central High School...
endorsed a 10-year plan, called the http://www.chipindy.org/pdf/ReaderFormatAll.pdf Blueprint to End Homelessness, and made it one of his administration's top priorities. The plan's main goals are for more affordable housing
Affordable housing
Affordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
units, employment opportunities, and support services. The Blueprint notwithstanding, Indianapolis has criminalized aspects of homelessness, such as making panhandling a misdemeanor
Misdemeanor
A misdemeanor is a "lesser" criminal act in many common law legal systems. Misdemeanors are generally punished much less severely than felonies, but theoretically more so than administrative infractions and regulatory offences...
; and the http://www.indygov.org/egov/Council/home.htm City-County Council has twice (in April 2002, and August 2005) denied the zoning necessary to open a new shelter for homeless women.
Boston & Massachusetts
In December 2007, Mayor Thomas M. MeninoThomas Menino
Thomas Michael "Tom" Menino is the mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, United States and the city's first Italian-American mayor...
of Boston, announced that the one night homeless count had revealed that the actual number of homeless living in the streets was down.
In October 2008, Connie Paige of The Boston Globe reported that the number of homeless in Massachusetts had reached an all-time high, mostly due to mortgage foreclosures and the national economic crisis.
In October 2009, as part of the city's Leading the Way initiative, Mayor Thomas Menino of Boston dedicated and opened the Weintraub Day Center which is the first city-operated day center for chronically homeless persons. It is a multi-service center, providing shelter, counseling, health care, housing assistance, and other support services. It is a 3400 square feet (315.9 m²) facility located in the Woods Mullen Shelter. It is also meant to reduce the strain on the city's hospital emergency rooms by providing services and identifying health problems before they escalate into emergencies. It was funded by $3 million in grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, abbreviated ARRA and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, is an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009, by President Barack Obama.To...
, Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), the Massachusetts Medical Society and Alliance Charitable Foundation, and the United States Department of Health and Human Services
United States Department of Health and Human Services
The United States Department of Health and Human Services is a Cabinet department of the United States government with the goal of protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America"...
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration is a branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is charged with improving the quality and availability of prevention, treatment, and rehabilitative services in order to reduce illness, death, disability, and cost to...
(SAMHSA).
In 2010, there was a continued crackdown on panhandling, especially the aggressive type, in downtown Boston. Summonses were being handed out, with scheduled court appearances. The results were mixed and in one upscale neighborhood, Beacon Hill, the resolve of the Beacon Hill Civic Association, which has received only one complaint about panhandlers, was to try to solve the bigger problem not by criminal actions.
Due to economic constraints in 2010, Governor Deval Patrick
Deval Patrick
Deval Laurdine Patrick is the 71st and current Governor of Massachusetts. A member of the Democratic Party, Patrick served as an Assistant United States Attorney General under President Bill Clinton...
had to cut the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 2011 budget so dental care for the majority of adults, including most homeless people, covered by MassHealth (Medicaid) would no longer be provided except for cleaning and extractions, with no fillings, dentures, or restorative care. This does not affect dental care for children. The measure took effect in July 2010 and affects an estimated 700,000 adults, including 130,000 seniors.
In September 2010, it was reported that the Housing First Initiative had significantly reduced the chronic homeless single person population in Boston, Massachusetts, although homeless families were still increasing in number. Some shelters were reducing the number of beds due to lowered numbers of homeless, and some emergency shelter facilities were closing, especially the emergency Boston Night Center.
There is sometimes corruption and theft by the employees of a shelter as evidenced by a 2011 investigative report by FOX 25 TV
WFXT
WFXT is a television station owned and operated by the News Corporation-owned Fox Broadcasting Company, located in Boston, Massachusetts. The station's studio and office facility is in Dedham, Massachusetts, and its transmitter is located in Needham, Massachusetts...
in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
wherein a number of Boston public shelter employees were found stealing large amounts of food over a period of time from the shelter's kitchen for their private use and catering.
New York City
On June 22, 2010, the New York City Department of Homeless Services reported that the sheltered homeless population consisted of:- 8,243 Families with children
- 1,271 Adult Families
- 7,725 Single Adults
- 35,537 Total Individuals
According to the Coalition for the Homeless, the homeless population of New York rose to an all-time high in 2011. A reported 113,552 people slept in the city’s emergency shelters last year, including over 40,000 children; marking an 8 percent increase from the previous year and a 37 percent increase from 2002. There was also a rise in the number of families relying on shelters, approximately 29,000. That is an increase of 80% from 2002. About half of the people who slept in shelter in 2010 returned for housing in 2011.http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/home-a26.shtml
According to the NYC Department of Homeless Services, 64 percent of those applying for emergency shelter in 2010 were denied. Several were denied because they were said to have family who could house them when in actuality this might not have been the case. Applicants may have faced overcrowding, unsafe conditions, or may have had relatives unwilling to house them. According to Mary Brosnaham, spokeswoman for Coalition for the Homeless, the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg employs a deliberate policy of “active deterrence”.
Part of the problem lies with long-term joblessness that characterizes the United States’ economic crisis. According to the Center for an Urban Future about a third of the adult workers in New York City are low-wage earners, making under $11.54 an hour.
Affordable rent rates considered to be no more than a third of the renter’s wages. A family in New York City must earn at least over $54,000 to find an affordable home. The median household income for renters in the Bronx and Brooklyn is barely $30,000 and 35,000 respectively. According to the Community Service Society, “Two-thirds of poor New Yorkers and over one-third of near poor households—up to twice the poverty level—spend at least half of their incomes on rent…and place millions of low-income New Yorkers at risk of housing hardships and displacement.”
The New York City Housing Authority is experiencing record demand for subsidized housing assistance. However, just 13,000 of the 29,000 families who applied were admitted into the public housing system or received federal housing vouchers known as [Section 8] in 2010. Due to budget cuts there have been no new applicants accepted to receive Section 8.http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/03/11/budget-cuts-threaten-nyc-homeless-program/
In March 2010, there were protests about the Governor's proposed cut of $65 million in annual funding to the homeless adult services system. The Bloomberg administration announced an immediate halt to the Advantage program, threatening to cast 15,000 families back into the shelters or onto the streets. A court has delayed the cut until May 2011 because there was doubt over the legality of cancelling the city’s commitment. However, the Advantage program http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/04/11/advocates-say-homelessness-in-new-york-city-has-reached-record-levels/ itself was consciously advanced by the Bloomberg administration as an alternative to providing long-term affordable housing opportunities for the poor and working class. The result, as the [Coalition for the Homeless] report points out, is that “Thousands of formerly-homeless children and families have been forced back into homelessness, In addition, Mayor Bloomberg proposed $37 million in cuts to the city’s budget for homeless services this year.http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/apr2011/home-a26.shtml
Florida
Homeless advocate and urban designer Michael E. ArthMichael E. Arth
Michael E. Arth is an American artist, home/landscape/urban designer, public policy analyst, advocate for the homeless, futurist, and author. He was a candidate for the governor of Florida in 2009 and 2010.-Art:Michael E...
proposed building a Pedestrian village
Pedestrian Village
A pedestrian village is a compact, pedestrian-oriented neighborhood or town, with a mixed-use village center, that follows the tenets of New Pedestrianism. Shared-use lanes for pedestrians and those using bicycles, Segways, wheelchairs, and other small rolling conveyances that do not use internal...
for the adult homeless in Volusia County near Daytona Beach, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
in 2007. As of 2009, Arth was still working toward trying to consolidate most of the scattered 19 local agencies into an attractive community that would be designed to more effectively address the needs of the chronically adult homeless and the temporarily adult homeless, as well as others who may be having difficulty fitting into the pervasive, automobile-dominated culture. He writes that the current "piecemeal approach" inefficiently spreads out services and work opportunities, and aggravates the problem by polarizing citizens who might otherwise be inclined to help. In response to critics who say that such a village would be like a concentration camp, Arth points out that the U.S. already concentrates their citizens into prisons at 7-8 times the rate of Canada or Europe. "There should be alternative between living on the street and being locked up that addresses the needs of the chronically and temporarily adult homeless." His proposed "Tiger Bay Village" would have a community garden and orchard, a place to hire certified workers, and a work crew to help build and maintain the village. "Little shops in the village center could process and rehabilitate donated clothes and furnishings to be sold to the public." Housing would range from multi-bed barracks to small Katrina cottages depending on a person's contributions to the village, special needs, and income. Arth claims that this would cost less and be far more effective than any of the other solutions tried elsewhere.
Income sources
Many are employed intermittently. Begging and panhandling is another important income source for some, but not most, homeless people.Internet begging
Cyberbegging or Internet beggingInternet begging
Internet begging, cyber-begging, or Internet panhandling is the online version of traditional begging, asking strangers for money to meet immediate and other needs...
is reported to be a new and effective way to beg without feeling shame.
Health concerns
There has been concern about the transmission of diseases in the homeless population housed in shelters, and the people who work there, especially with tuberculosisTuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
.
A 2011 study led by Dr. Rebecca T. Brown in Boston, Massachusetts conducted by the Institute for Aging Research (an affiliate of Harvard Medical School), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts is a major flagship teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. It was formed out of the 1996 merger of Beth Israel Hospital and New England Deaconess Hospital...
, and the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program found the elderly homeless population had "higher rates of geriatric syndromes, including functional decline, falls, frailty and depression, than seniors in the general population and that many of these conditions may be easily treated if detected". The report was published in the Journal of Geriatric Internal Medicine.
Women
Homeless women between the ages of 18 and 44 are between 5 and 31 times more at risk of dying than those women who have homes. Homeless women over the age of 44, however, are healthier than homeless men of the same age, and are negligibly more at risk of dying than housed women. Psychologically, however, homeless women in their fifties suffer from troubles and chronic diseases from which their housed counterparts only begin to suffer in their seventies. Despite their comparable psychological condition, elderly housing assistance is not available to these homeless women. Between 3.1 and 4.4 % of homeless women in the United States are veterans of the armed services
Military of the United States
The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. They consist of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Coast Guard.The United States has a strong tradition of civilian control of the military...
. 57% of these have availed of the Veterans Affairs
United States Department of Veterans Affairs
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs is a government-run military veteran benefit system with Cabinet-level status. It is the United States government’s second largest department, after the United States Department of Defense...
' healthcare services.
Adult partner abuse, foster care, and childhood sexual abuse are all more likely to have been experienced by homeless women than by their male counterparts. Domestic violence is the direct cause of homelessness for over half of all homeless women in the United States. Approximately three quarters of the women who attempt to avail of domestic violence shelter
Women's shelter
A women's shelter is a place of temporary refuge and support for women escaping violent or abusive situations, such as rape, and domestic violence....
beds are turned away in major American cities. These victims of domestic violence are often excluded from homelessness studies, despite the lack of livable conditions in their homes.
It Was a Wonderful Life
It Was a Wonderful Life
It Was a Wonderful Life is a 1993 documentary film about homeless women in the United States. It won the Gold Award at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. It was also nominated for an award by the International Documentary Association and for Best Documentary at the Hawaii...
, a 1993
1993 in film
The year 1993 in film involved many significant films, including the blockbuster hits Jurassic Park, The Fugitive and The Firm. -Events:...
documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
narrated by Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster
Alicia Christian "Jodie" Foster is an American actress, film director, producer as well as a former child actress....
, chronicles the lives of six articulate, educated, but otherwise hidden homeless women as they struggle from day to day.
See also
- Dignity VillageDignity VillageDignity Village is a city-recognized encampment of an estimated 60 homeless people in Portland, Oregon, United States.In the days before Christmas of 2000, a group of homeless people in Portland succeeded in establishing a tent city which garnered a great deal of both opposition and support, and...
- Frontline FoundationFrontline FoundationThe Frontline Foundation, located in downtown Los Angeles, California, is a non-profit charity organization that serves emergency meals to people on Skid Row. As of July 2006, it has served over 860,000 meals...
- Homeless ministryHomeless ministryHomeless ministry is the intentional interaction between Christians and homeless persons, regardless of their faith. The ministering typically occurs in the environment in which the homeless reside. It may include distribution of provisions such as food, clothing, and blankets...
- HomelessnessHomelessnessHomelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...
- Mole PeopleMole PeopleMole people is a term used to refer to the homeless people living under large cities in abandoned subway tunnels and shafts.- Urban folklore :...
- Poverty in the United StatesPoverty in the United StatesPoverty is defined as the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. According to the U.S. Census Bureau data released Tuesday September 13th, 2011, the nation's poverty rate rose to 15.1% in 2010, up from 14.3% in 2009 and to its highest level...
- Vagrancy (people)Vagrancy (people)A vagrant is a person in poverty, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or income.-Definition:A vagrant is "a person without a settled home or regular work who wanders from place to place and lives by begging;" vagrancy is the condition of such persons.-History:In...
External links
- Survival Guide to Homelessness
- Homelessness restrictions in Top 20 "meanest" U.S. cities. (Information for all U.S. cities)
- "Of No Fixed Address: A Collection of Voices from the Streets of Chicago"
- City Mayors Society - "Hunger and homelessness continues to rise in US cities"
- City Mayors Society - "Report accuses US cities of criminalising the homeless"
- City Mayors Society - "Big US cities report steep rise in hunger and homelessness"
- National Coalition for the Homeless
- National Alliance to End Homelessness
- Corporation for Supportive Housing
- National Coalition for Homeless Veterans
- L.A.'s Homeless Blog
- Fotolog of the homeless in New York City and Wilkes-Barre, PA
- Blog on homelessness in Los Angeles
- National Low Income Housing Coalition
- Economic Policy Institute
- Urban Institute
- Interagency Council on Homeless - US Government
- City of Boston Homeless census reports
- Coalition for the Homeless (New York)
- Bowery Rescue Mission, New York City
- St. Francis House, Boston, MassachusettsSaint Francis House (Boston)Saint Francis House is a nonprofit, nonsectarian, ecumenical daytime shelter, primarily for the homeless, located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, and founded in the early 1980s...
http://www.stfrancishouse.org/ - United States Conference of Mayors: Human Services
- United States Department of Housing and Urban Development site on Homelessness
- United States Department of Health and Human Services site on Homelessness
- Friends of Boston's Homeless
- The Doe Fund (Ready, Willing, and Able), New York City
- History of Homeless Services - Boston Public Health Commission
- Pine Street Inn, Boston
- National Housing Institute - resources, information, and publisher of "Shelterforce", The Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Building.
- National Center on Family Homelessness
- "Homelessness in the City of Boston Winter 2003-2004" - Annual Census and Mayor's Report, Boston, Thomas M. Menino, Mayor
- State Auditor's Report on Public Housing in Massachusetts, 2006
- Center for the Homeless - Community Programs (South Bend, IN)
- Teen Living Programs helps homeless teens in the Chicago area
- United Coalition East Prevention Project - Los Angeles Skid Row Nonprofit
- TODAY show: More homeless families in LA
- KCET-TV Segment on "Skid Row Kids"
- Children Left Behind: The Plight of Homeless Students in Los Angeles
- BRC (Bowery Residents Committee) New York City
- National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness (USA)
Multimedia
- "The Mainstream and the Marginalized: Reflections on Homelessness and Relational Justice" - Presentation by John C. Frame at the Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights PolicyCarr Center for Human Rights PolicyThe Carr Center for Human Rights Policy is research center concerned with human rights, and is located at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University....
, sponsored by The Human Rights & Social Movements Program, April 16, 2010, YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
video. John C. Frame was a student at Harvard Divinity SchoolHarvard Divinity SchoolHarvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. The School's mission is to train and educate its students either in the academic study of religion, or for the practice of a religious ministry or other public...
who had experience living on the streets among the homeless during the summer of 2009. See also the Harvard listing for this talk: "The Human Rights & Social Movements Program presents “The Mainstream and the Marginalized: Reflections on Homelessness and Relational Justice” with John C. Frame, Th.M., M.Div., M.P.A."
Resources
- FirstStep Guide to getting help for the homeless - US Government HHSUnited States Department of Health and Human ServicesThe United States Department of Health and Human Services is a Cabinet department of the United States government with the goal of protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Improving the health, safety, and well-being of America"...
, HUDUnited States Department of Housing and Urban DevelopmentThe United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, also known as HUD, is a Cabinet department in the Executive branch of the United States federal government...
, et al.