homelessness

homelessness, the state of having no home or permanent place of residence.

Few social problems are as visible as the plight of homeless people. Once almost invisible and easily ignored, homeless people are now a common sight in cities, suburbs, and even some rural areas. There are men who roam the streets carrying what is left of their possessions in shopping bags or grocery carts. There are women curled up on benches, in stairwells, or under bridges. There are families, typically mothers and children, scrounging for food and looking for shelter. Homelessness takes many forms, but most homeless people have one thing in common: poverty.

Scope and causes

Homelessness exists in every country of the world. Because of a lack of reliable statistics, it is impossible to measure homelessness with great accuracy. In 2005 the United Nations (UN) estimated that approximately 100 million people worldwide did not have a permanent place to live. In the United States, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issues a report on homelessness in the country each year. Its report for 2019 found that more than 567,000 people were homeless on a single night in January of that year. That figure does not give a complete picture of the extent of homelessness in the country, however, because the homeless population is constantly shifting. The number of people who experience homelessness at some time during the course of a year is much greater than the number of people who are homeless on a given night. For example, HUD found that in 2016 more than 1.4 million Americans relied on a homeless shelter or transitional housing for at least part of the year. The statistics cited in the remainder of this article will refer to populations who were homeless on a given night, not to those who were homeless at some time during the course of a year.

Homelessness has a number of causes, many of which are closely related. One major cause is a lack of affordable housing. Some people cannot afford rent or mortgage payments because they are unemployed. They may be unable to find work because of a recession or because of physical or mental illness. The loss of a job can cause some families to join the ranks of the homeless for a period of days, weeks, or months until another job is found. Other homeless people have jobs but do not make enough money to pay for housing, sometimes because the cost of living in their neighbourhood has risen. People may also slip into homelessness after living through war, natural disasters, or a personal hardship, such as domestic abuse.

Homelessness in the United States

The 2019 HUD report found that nearly half of those experiencing homelessness lived in one of three states: California, New York, and Florida. They were concentrated in urban areas, particularly in the largest cities. New York City and Los Angeles alone accounted for almost one-fourth of the country’s homeless population.

The HUD report described the homeless as being either sheltered or unsheltered. Sheltered homeless people spend the night in emergency shelters or in transitional, or temporary, housing. Unsheltered homeless people sleep on the streets, in cars, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not intended for human habitation. The report found that nearly two-thirds of the homeless in the United States were sheltered, the rest being unsheltered.

More than two-thirds of the homeless in 2019 were individuals living alone. The rest were families with children. Seven out of ten homeless individuals were men. Some groups in the United States experience homelessness at much higher rates than others. For example, in 2019, 40 percent of homeless people were African Americans, though they made up only 13 percent of the country’s population overall. Veterans have also suffered high rates of homelessness, constituting 8 percent of all homeless adults in 2019.

Helping the homeless

The United Nations has defined access to housing as a human right. Therefore, it considers homelessness to be a human rights violation caused by unjust inequalities in income and wealth. The UN has called on governments throughout the world to do more to combat the problem.

Government responses to homelessness have varied. England passed a law in 1977 that required local authorities to house the homeless. However, the Homeless Persons Act promised assistance only to homeless people who were considered a “priority.” This meant that homeless families with children often received help while homeless individuals were turned away. A new law passed in 2017 required local councils to house all of the homeless regardless of their priority status.

In the United States, the first major law to address homelessness was the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. It provided basic services for the homeless, with an emphasis on emergency services. From the early 2000s the government focused on finding transitional or permanent housing for the homeless. It also funded programs aimed at preventing homelessness among youth. In addition to federal efforts, local governments and private groups have played a vital role in funding and running programs to help homeless people.