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All over the US and in increasing numbers in Urban areas in first world countries, homelessness is on the rise. What is behind this increase in numbers? This is not like the 30's in the US with "hobos" who rode the rails looking for work or help, or the nearest soup kitchen. There was a real homeless culture in the 80's and now it's just off the rails, with every urban area just overrun with homeless. Problems with sanitation and balancing economics with human behavior. What do you feel is the root problem behind the huge numbers that have blossomed over the last decade?
There are many reasons behind these record numbers of homeless, but things tend to boil down to the following.
Past economic recession and financial market crash have caused economic pain down the lines which many are still dealing with and or will not recover from.
Official unemployment is down to around five percent but wage growth is stagnant. The unofficial unemployment rate is much higher which means you have many persons either with no income or living via various means from under the table employment to charity (begging). Either way affording housing costs have become tight for many.
It still remains very difficult to get a mortgage if you aren't within in a certain demographic. This in turn in pushing rents up as persons who should be moving into a place they own find they either cannot qualify for financing or simply cannot afford to own period. Meanwhile those who *can* are pushing up rents as the market seeks to cater for that demographic.
Here in NYC the only "poor" who are able to remain in rental housing are either living in areas no one else wants (there are a few left), and or are not in public, subsidized or rent controlled housing. Even then many are finding rents rising faster than their income. Latest numbers say a good portion of NYC renters are paying >50% of their monthly take home wages towards housing costs. Some are even going as high as >60%. That is a precarious situation as living paycheck to paycheck means they are often just one from living on the street.
I live in a big city, have also traveled all over the country/world, and have encountered the homeless everywhere.
I believe a lot of the homeless are drug addicts and/or lazy people that don't want to work. I am not nieve enough to think that all of them are like that - however, a lot of them are. Obviously, a lot of them are also mentally ill. Also, many of them are criminals.
I also wonder how many of them are actually suffering financially. I.e., why do some of the homeless have I-phones? How can they afford them? I don't even have an I-phone.
I live in a big city, have also traveled all over the country/world, and have encountered the homeless everywhere. I believe a lot of the homeless are drug addicts and/or lazy people that don't want to work. I am not nieve enough to think that all of them are like that - however, a lot of them are. Obviously, a lot of them are also mentally ill. Also, many of them are criminals. I also wonder how many of them are actually suffering financially. I.e., why do some of the homeless have I-phones? How can they afford them? I don't even have an I-phone.
I have a friend who has a 26 year old who is severely mentally ill, they watch him closely they even hire a caretaker when they aren't home, but every once in a while he takes off and hitchhikes to San Francisco. Sometimes his parents find him and take him home, other times the police find him and they are able to call his parents to pick him up because yes, OMG he has an iphone, and their number is in it. It is his parent's old iphone but it is an iphone. Without it he would probably stay on the streets until he got assaulted or put in a a psych ward.
I think there's two big reasons why there are more homeless people today than there were before: The lack of jobs paying a livable wage and the high cost of housing.
Many of the jobs that used to provide a living wage for those without a high school diploma or no college have been sent overseas. Today it's almost a requirement for any decent job that you have to have some degree or certificate. Getting that degree or certificate is difficult for students that have parents to support them and let them live at home while they go to school. It's close to impossible for those with no support. It's almost impossible to work your way through college today. A year's wage at a minimum wage job will maybe pay one quarter of tuition at a college. So the education needed for a good job is much harder to get than has been in the past.
In addition to that, many jobs require background checks and perfect credit. Many, many people had their credit ruined in the crash of 2008. And many jobs require you to not have bill problems or debt problems. That means, if a person is still trying to recover from losing their home or getting behind in bills or having a vehicle repossessed, even if it was because they were laid off at their old job or their previous employer went under, they have a much more difficult time getting a job.
And there aren't that many good jobs out there. People will tell you employers are hiring, but the majority of employers are only hiring for minimum wage jobs. The better jobs need that degree or that certificate.
So finding, getting, and keeping a good job, which is the key to getting a person out of homelessness, is very, very hard.
As to housing, buying a house is tougher today than it was before. Many of those thrown out of the housing market don't qualify for a loan or have anything saved up for a down payment or they used all their savings when they lost their old jobs. That means they have to rent.
There are way more people who want to rent than there are rentals available. So rents are also going sky high. If a person gets a minimum wage job that gives them say, $1400/month (and that's only if they get 40 hours a week), and $1000 of that goes for rent every month, you can see where that would be a problem. It's also problematic when people need to have a reliable vehicle to get to work, and employers will ask if they do. Now you have someone who has to make car payments. This along with food, utilities, clothes for working, gas, car insurance, etc, takes a big chunk out of the monthly budget. So there's often not enough left over to pay for rent.
I think people would be surprised to know how many homeless people actually work for a living. I was surprised myself and I lived in my truck for 6 years, working full time for minimum wage and paying off my debts. As a matter of fact, there were a lot of articles about the homeless people who work full time - they're called shadow people. They show up to work dressed appropriately and do a good job, but unless they told you, you'd never know they were living in their car or vans or U-Haul trailers.
People being shoved out of psychiatric hospitals. There are many mentally ill homeless people.
Uptick in serious drug and alcohol use. Drug testing for many jobs, and the ease of getting legal or illegal drugs.
Obviously, mental illness is not something anyone can control.
However, I have 0 sympathy for people who become homeless because of a drug/alcohol addiction. Everyone has the potential to be addicted, but many of us resist the temptation. If you end up on the street as a result of your life being ruined because of your addiction to narcotics/booze, it's your own fault. Plus, obviously many crimes (from theft to much worse) are committed by scum-bags (who may or may not be homeless) who need money so they can get their next fix.
I have 0 sympathy for people who become homeless because of a drug/alcohol addiction. Everyone has the potential to be addicted, but many of us resist the temptation.
You know, I have had several discussions recently on this and related topics. Seems people all know someone, even if just a neighbor's college grad kid, still living at home, and unemployed. Yet, almost no one sees fit to agree with me about the economy. They all insist that we're in a recovery. We're not.
The well-employed cannot see it; the hopeful cannot see it. But I look around and see it everywhere. Do they think that the "tiny house" movement is just an environmentally trendy way to live? What do they think of people - of all ages - moving shed buildings into their parent's or friend's backyard, then fitting them out to live in? Or trading expensive cars in for a van, and moving into that?
Yes, it can be "cool" to live on the street while young, in a kind of fake poverty. This does a true disservice to the truly poor, who simply cannot afford today's rents because wages have not kept up with them...if there are any wages.
Until we can have a frank and intelligent discussion regarding the deteriorating economy, it seems silly to discuss the causes of homelessness.
I feel just like you. I grabbed this from a great thread in the economics forum. I thought you'd like to see it. It was a real eye opener for me.
I live in a big city, have also traveled all over the country/world, and have encountered the homeless everywhere.
I believe a lot of the homeless are drug addicts and/or lazy people that don't want to work. I am not nieve enough to think that all of them are like that - however, a lot of them are. Obviously, a lot of them are also mentally ill. Also, many of them are criminals.
I also wonder how many of them are actually suffering financially. I.e., why do some of the homeless have I-phones? How can they afford them? I don't even have an I-phone.
Moderator cut: Off Topic
You'd be surprised how many homeless aren't "dirt poor". Many have jobs, get SSI or SSDI and or other financials; they just cannot afford housing. A smart phone is damn cheap to purchase and have (especially if you choose a pay as you go plan) versus coming up with the often $$$ or $$$$ it costs per month in rent.
All over the United States and Europe you are seeing increased homeless on the streets as a result of a good thing. Cities/urban areas such as Paris, London, Berlin, New York, San Francisco and so forth made great efforts starting in the 1980's through 1990's to clean up and reinvent themselves. It has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. White flight is largely over with whites and everyone else leaving the rural/suburbs to live in the "new" cities. This has places enormous pressure on housing both rental and owned. With demand far below supply landlords/property owners can ask and often get top dollar. That means those who cannot pay such amounts are pushed out.
Here in NYC in areas that recently as the 1980's you valued your life cheaply by entering such as the Lower East Side, East Village, the Bowery, Hell's Kitchen, Harlem, the South Bronx, Bedford Stuyvesant, Fort Greene etc... are now full of transplants and hipsters. Apartments you couldn't give away then are now renting for three, four, five or more *thousand* per month. A apartment building near us was newly renovated with rents starting at around $3K per month and going up to over $11K was fully rented in less than one month.
In San Francisco the last place for the "poor" is the Tenderloin District; and they are fighting a tough battle to keep from being pushed out of there as well. Everywhere else has gone very high price...
Yes, some of these homeless have mental and or substance abuse issues. Yes, there are those with criminal pasts. But they have always made up the hardcore numbers of homeless. The recent explosion you are seeing is a direct result of economic situations. Persons either have lost their jobs (and cannot find another), and or cannot find housing they can afford.
In a world where so many are living paycheck to paycheck it does not take much to push them over the edge. Job loss, unexpected health or other emergency that depletes their savings and or causes them to lose work all put them at risk of being evicted. That and simply unless renters are protected by some sort of laws landlords are free to charge whatever rent they wish. You may have been a good tenant for ten or so years, but if you are paying only $500 per and the LL thinks he can get $5000.....
First of all, I'd like to thank you, PoopySeed, for posting the lecture given by Elizabeth Warren, as the picture the raw data paints clearly depicts the main reasons for the increase in homelessness in North America. I must confess to wondering how many posting on CD will take the time, an hour of their time, to listen to it. My guess would be not many. I'd love to be wrong.
For those of us who grew up in less affluent cultures/societies, we already know where this is heading. Unfortunately, the one plus that made day-to-day living a joy in those places has all but flown from us. With the breakdown of the family unit (few multigenerational households, and too much divorce, etc.), it has become much more difficult for people to survive economically, and for married couples with children, it's really tough.
One aspect of the problem that Elizabeth Warren didn't mention (too unsavory?) is the excess mortality we are now seeing in individuals who do develop health problems that require surgery, and the lack of post-surgical care that is covered by insurance companies, along with the family food budget being cut by half over the last forty years, and the vast decline in the quality of the food we now eat, coupled with the saturation of our food sources with toxic heavy metals, pesticides, and other chemicals.
In addition, nutritional supplements are expensive and out of the reach of many, and life-sustaining medicines are no longer covered by most employers, so many (even working) people are dying for want of adequate medical care.
Where once we had extended family and intact core family units to see us through emergencies such as sicknesses, the loss of a job, or jobs (in two-income families), and accidents and injuries, we now have to look to other means of survival.
Whether we own or rent our homes, those in the middle class will have to rent out rooms to strangers. Whole families will share a bedroom (or 'sleeping room,' as we used to call them) to keep costs manageable, and those in the household will assist each other, just as extended families used to do.
Many of us will live in our vehicles, most likely vans, preferring privacy to communal living.
I short; we'll have to lower our expectations.
In cultures that are used to plenty of everything being available, we're going to see an awful lot of culture shock.
Last edited by Mahrie; 11-07-2015 at 02:41 AM..
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