How many homeless reside in the USA? Although it is impossible to say exactly how many US citizens are homeless, US Census Bureau constructed a census containing an estimated count of people without conventional housing. According to the US Census Bureau, people without conventional housing are people who are living with other families; people who list addresses of friends rather than their own; children in foster care; and people residing in emergency and transitional shelters, halfway houses, hotels and motels, jails, group homes, and nonsheltered outdoor locations http://www.census.gov. The 2000 Census states that there are 170,706 people who live in emergency and transactional shelters in the United States; however, these numbers are merely estimation.
Homelessness is a growing problem in the US, and Cincinnati is just one of many cities is faced with the problems of providing needs to the homeless. The National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) http://www.nationalhomeless.org says, “Two trends are largely responsible for the rise in homelessness over the past 20-25 years: A growing shortage of affordable rental housing and a simultaneous increase in poverty.” Because of the recession, over six million jobs have been lost causing a loss of wages and the inability to pay mortgages.NCH states that there has been a thirty-two percent rise in foreclosures between April 2008 and April 2009. Poverty is increasing due to eroding work opportunities and the decline of the value of minimum wage. The NCH states that the lack of affordable housing has also contributed to homelessness. Factors include: federal support for low-income housing falling nearly fifty percent from 1980 to 2003; lower-income families’ income declining while rent prices rise and the shortage of affordable housing causing high rent burdens.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness http://www.endhomelessness.org, there are currently over 670,000 people who cannot obtain affordable, permanent housing. The Alliance states that although recession has had an overall effect of homelessness, and independent reports have suggested that family homeless numbers has risen, there is not enough data to quantify the effects. Though research is, thus far, inconclusive, we can conclude that homelessness continues to be a growing social problem. We need to promote public programs that educate the public about the realities of homelessness and need to support local organizations that are proactively seeking solutions.
