Running head: HOMELESSNESS 1

Homelessness is a major problem

Thomas Gouard

Kennedy King College

Author Note

This paper was prepared for Social Service 101, taught by Professor Susan

Buckner.

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Abstract

Homelessness is a major issue that social workers face. This issue is a never ending

issue, and there are many factors that contribute to people becoming homeless: lack of

affordable housing, domestic violence, mental illness, and addiction. Homelessness is

often assumed to be an urban phenomenon because homeless people are more

numerous, more geographically concentrated, and more visible in urban areas.

However, people experience the same difficulties associated with homelessness and

housing distress in America’s small towns and rural areas as they do in urban areas.

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Homelessness is a major problem

A serious social welfare policy issue faced; slowly declining, but continuing to

sharply rise in larger cities is homelessness. More than 500,000 people were homeless

in the United States at the end of last year, according to a report by the Department of

Housing and Urban Development. Despite various public and private efforts to provide

decent low-income housing and temporary shelter, including the 1987 Stewart B.

McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, the National Coalition for the Homeless believes

the number of homeless people in America continues to grow .52 Estimates of

homelessness vary, in part, because the definition of what constitutes “homelessness”

varies. The National Coalition for the Homeless uses a broad definition, claiming that

people who live in unstable housing arrangements and lack a permanent place to stay

are, in fact, experiencing homelessness. Although the National Law Center on

Homelessness and Poverty estimates that as many as 2 million people experiencing

homelessness during a given year in the United States, the National Coalition for the

Homeless, because of the difficulty in counting the homeless, chooses to cite the

shortage of available services for the homeless. According to the coalition, in 1998, 26%

of requests for emergency shelter in 30 U.S. cities went unmet due to a lack of

resources. What is more, another study showed that in 50 cities around the United

States, the individual city’s official estimated number of homeless typically exceeded

that city’s available number of shelter and transitional housing spaces. Rural areas of

the U.S. generally have even fewer resources for the homeless. Thus, in a nation that

has never adequately housed all of its people, homelessness continues to be a serious

policy issue.

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According to Homeless.org, a lack of affordable housing and the limited scale of

housing assistance programs have contributed to the current housing crisis and to

homelessness. Recently, foreclosures have also increased the number of people who

experience homeless. Homeless and poverty are inextricably linked. Poor people are

frequently unable to pay for housing, food, childcare, health care, and education.

Difficult choices must be made when limited resources cover only some of these

necessities. Often it is housing, which absorbs a high proportion of income that must be

dropped. If you are poor, you are essentially an illness, an accident, or a paycheck

away from living on the streets.

• In 2011, the official poverty rate was 15.0%. There were 46.2 million people in

poverty.

Two factors help account for increasing poverty:

• Lack of Employment Opportunities – With unemployment rates remaining high,

jobs are hard to find in the current economy. Even if people can find work, this

does not automatically provide an escape from poverty.

• Decline in Available Public Assistance – The declining value and availability of

public assistance is another source of increasing poverty and homelessness and

many families leaving welfare struggle to get medical care, food, and housing as

a result of loss of benefits, low wages, and unstable employment. Additionally,

most states have not replaced the old welfare system with an alternative that

enables families and individuals to obtain above-poverty employment and to

sustain themselves when work is not available or possible.

Other major factors, which can contribute to homelessness, include:

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• Lack of Affordable Health Care – For families and individuals struggling to pay

the rent, a serious illness or disability can start a downward spiral into

homelessness, beginning with a lot job, depletion of savings to pay for care, and

eventually eviction.

• Domestic Violence – Battered women who live in poverty are often forced to

choose between abusive relationships and homelessness. In addition, 50% of

the cities surveyed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors identified domestic

violence as a primary cause of homelessness (U.S. Conference of Mayors,

2005).

• Mental Illness – Approximately 16% of the single adult homeless population

suffers from some form of severe and persistent mental illness (U.S. Conference

of Mayors, 2005).

• Addiction – The relationship between addiction and homelessness is complex

and controversial. Many people who are addicted to alcohol and drugs never

become homeless, but people who are poor and addicted are clearly at

increased risk of homelessness.

There are three types of homelessness – chronic, transitional, and episodic – which

can be defined as follows:

Chronic Homelessness - Persons most like the stereotyped profile of the “skid-row”

homeless, who are likely to be entrenched in the shelter system and for whom shelters

are more like long-term housing rather than an emergency arrangement. These

individuals are likely to be older, and consist of the “hard-core unemployed”, often

HOMELESSNESS 6

suffering from disabilities and substance abuse problems. Yet such persons represent

a far smaller proportion of the population compared to the transitionally homeless.

Transitional Homelessness – Transitionally homeless individuals generally enter the

shelter system for only one stay and for a short period. Such persons are likely to be

younger, are probably recent members of the precariously housed population and have

become homeless because of some catastrophic event, and have been forced to

spend a short time in a homeless shelter before making a transition into more stable

housing. Over time, transitionally homeless individuals will account for the majority of

persons experiencing homelessness given their higher rate of turnover.

Episodic Homelessness – Those who frequently shuttle in and out of homelessness

are known as episodically homeless. They are most likely to be young, but unlike those

in transitional homelessness, episodically homeless individuals often are chronically

unemployed and experience medical, mental health, and substance abuse problems.

Unsurprisingly, larger metros like New York and Los Angeles had bigger

populations of homeless people than smaller cities, but homelessness is a problem in

towns of all sizes. In Honolulu, with a population of less than 400,000, there were

nearly 5,000 homeless people. Orange County, California; Nassau and Suffolk

Counties on New York’s Long Island; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Springfield,

Massachusetts, all had homeless population above 3,000. While all states had some

people living in shelters or on the street, overall, half of the 564,708 homeless in the

U.S. lived in just five states: California, New York, Florida, Texas, and Massachusetts.

Homelessness is often assumed to be an urban phenomenon because homeless

people are more numerous, more geographically concentrated, and more visible in

HOMELESSNESS 7

urban areas. However, people experience the same difficulties associated with

homelessness and housing distress in America’s small towns and rural areas as they

do in urban areas.

In urban areas, estimates commonly rely on counts of persons using services.

However, by this measure, homeless persons in rural areas are likely substantially

under- counted due to lack of rural service sites, the difficulty capturing persons who do

not use homeless services, the limited number of researchers working in rural

communities, and the minimal incentive for rural providers to collect data on their

clients.

Rural homelessness, like urban homelessness, is the result of poverty and a lack of

affordable housing, and research has shown.

• The odds of being poor are between 1.2 to 2.3 times higher for people in non-

metropolitan areas than in metropolitan areas

• 1 in 5 non- metro counties is classified as a ‘high poverty’ county (having a

poverty rate of 20% or higher), while only 1 in 20 metro counties are defined as

such

• Homeless people in rural areas are more likely to be white, female, married,

currently working, homeless for the first time, and homeless for a shorter period

of time.

They myriad issues surrounding poverty and homelessness create major relational

strains. People exhaust their personal relationships in the same way they exhaust their

financial resources. By the time a person is living on the streets, camping, or staying in

a shelter their relationships are damaged, adding loneliness to their other problems. A

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simple friendship can be a meaningful starting place in helping a person to recover

from being homeless. Entering a shelter, seeking mental health treatment, going to

twelve step meetings, applying for help with housing --- these can be daunting tasks.

Walking with someone, believing in them, encouraging them, and listening can give

them strength to address problems in other areas of their life.

With all the research shown in this paper; this is proof that homelessness is a major

issue that many in the social work field face, and it will continue to be a major issue if

these problems aren’t addressed in such areas listed. Homelessness can easily affect

any of us, if we are exposed to the risks of it, but after doing the research I found that

some have a greater chance than others. I had the pleasure of doing a report on a

social service agency in Uptown called “Cornerstone Community Outreach”. Their main

focus is people who experience homelessness, with their primary mission being

providing shelter, accepting people, and helping them find a home. Cornerstone

Community Outreaches programs consist of Hanna House, Sylvia Center, Naomi

House Shelter, Epworth Shelter, Friendly Towers, and Leland Permanent Housing.

These programs are designed to shelter or house families whether you are a woman

with children, man with children, single, or elderly. Cornerstone Community Outreach is

one of the many jewels that we have in Chicago with the primary focus of those that are

affected by homelessness.

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References

Taylor, A. (2016, February 11). America’s Tent Cities for the Homeless. Retrieved

October 04, 2016, from http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/02/americas-tent-

cities-for-the-homeless/462450/

Marx, J. (2016). Current Issues and Programs in Social Welfare - Social Welfare History

Project. Retrieved October 04, 2016, from

http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/recollections/current-issues-and-programs-in-

social-welfare/

Homelessness in America - national coalition for the homeless. (2014). Retrieved

October 9, 2016, from National Homeless.org, http://nationalhomeless.org/about-

homelessness/

Elliott, M., & megan-elliot. (2016, July 29). Poverty: 10 cities with the most homeless

people. Retrieved October 9, 2016, from Culture,

http://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/cities-with-the-most-homeless-people.html/?

a=viewall

Good Works, Inc. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2016, from http://good-

works.net/articles/why-do-people-become-homeless-2/

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References

Taylor, A. (2016, February 11). America’s Tent Cities for the Homeless. Retrieved

October 04, 2016, from http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/02/americas-tent-

cities-for-the-homeless/462450/

Marx, J. (2016). Current Issues and Programs in Social Welfare - Social Welfare History

Project. Retrieved October 04, 2016, from

http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/recollections/current-issues-and-programs-in-

social-welfare/

Homelessness in America - national coalition for the homeless. (2014). Retrieved

October 9, 2016, from National Homeless.org, http://nationalhomeless.org/about-

homelessness/

Elliott, M., & megan-elliot. (2016, July 29). Poverty: 10 cities with the most homeless

people. Retrieved October 9, 2016, from Culture,

http://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/cities-with-the-most-homeless-people.html/?

a=viewall

Good Works, Inc. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2016, from http://good-

works.net/articles/why-do-people-become-homeless-2/