The Major Reasons and Causes of Homelessness in America

Although there are many reasons why people become homeless, this paper will only include several reason and leading cause which happening in the United States. Homeless poverty is best known as the states of being poor. When people lack income to meet all of their needs they are forced to choose between housing, utilities, transportation, children, healthcare and food. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness states that there are 633,782 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States. 142,168(22.1%) are children, 62,619 (13%) are veterans and 269,991 (42.6%) are disabled and unable to work. On any given night in the United States most people are spending the night either in homeless shelters or in some short of short-termed transitional housing. Slightly more than a third are living in cars or under bridges are in some other way living unsheltered, which subject one to different types of violence which may include rape.

On any given night in the United States there are children under the age of 18 who are unaccompanied. According to HUD, although we see this, there is a federal program, No Child Left Behind which defines “homeless children” more broadly and includes not just those living in shelters or transitional housing but those who are sharing the housing of other persons due to economic hardship; living in cars, bus or train stations, or awaiting foster care placement which under this arrangement has meant that the local school districts has reported that three are over 1 million homeless children in public schools. Nearly 5,000 of the veterans who are homeless are females. Domestic Violence is a leading cause of homelessness among women. According to the NLCHP, National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. Many people are homeless because they can’t afford rent, the lack of affordable housing is a primary causes of homelessness and in recent decades the budget has slashed by 50%, making it nearly impossible to provide housing to thousands of people. The slashing of budget has resulted in 10,000 units of subsidized low-income housing each and every year.

One-eighth of the nation’s supply of low-income housing has been permanently lost since. Over 5 million homes have been foreclosed on since 2008. That’s one out of every 10homes with a mortgage. This has caused people to search for more affordable rental property. Approximately 33 percent of the homeless are individuals with mental illnesses that are left untreated. Many of these people suffer from schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder or major depression. The homeless for mental illness population has increasedsteadily in cities and small towns since the 1970’s. Reading back on this paragraph, there are a lot of mixtures that serves a great recipe for disaster and a need to do something about it.

Many of us awaken in beds in the comfort of our homes, and apartments, we have the luxury of driving to work or getting driven to work and school, being able to purchase food to be able to eat hot meals on a daily basis. As a person living in a middle class family, I can admit that I take these thing for granted. I’m very privileged at the end of the day to be able to enjoy these things. Unfortunately, many people do not get to experience this way of living because they are homeless. Homelessness is not only described as a state of being homeless, Ally Fogg, a journalist for the Guardian describes homelessness as a lack of housing, lack of jobs, lack of money, lack of social support, lack of mental health care, but above all lack of compassion.

Some people say that homelessness is an Epidemic that has no solution but I disagree. Others say how this issue is preventable. In some cases, that is still true. Sometimes situations that we go through as human beings are not preventable for an example, one family may become homeless because a person may have been laid off from a job that once supported the entire family now the parent is out of work and unable to care for the family. I believe that homelessness can be eliminated from society if the government and citizens of the United Stated come together to create job training and jobs and more affordable housing for the people of the United Stated.

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