Not Hidden

As the holidays are approaching. Many people begin to reflect on the homeless people. People may volunteer in soup kitchens for Thanksgiving and it’s a good feeling. The problem I am concerned with are people forget the homeless after they have done their good deeds. Thanks to the modern technology there has been improvement on calculating the people who live in the streets or in tents.

“These reforms have substantially improved the accuracy of the census, with one analyst estimating that the percentage of the overall population that was mistakenly not counted (the ‘net under-count’) has steadily declined for the most of the past half-century -from 5.4% in 1940 to 1.2% in 2000  (Kearns, B. pg. 8).”

People will continue to argue and debate about the negative findings of the homeless, but the problem will not go away. They are not hidden and the homeless has daily needs just as well as others . There are many people who can relate that they are one paycheck away from being in the same position. But until a person has been in the real predicament, it is a different world. Some people take for granted the conditioned homes, clean clothes, the easy access to the refrigerator anytime, running hot water, transportation, convenient medical attention, etc. The list goes on as one ponders.

Some people are happy with the tent being secured in the ground, finding something to eat, hoping to not get injured or bitten, and being less conspicuous of the living situation to the outside world. Deemed as an outcast to the regular population, survival is the main emphasis for most homeless people.

“While circumstances can vary, the main reason people experience homelessness is because they cannot find housing they can afford. It is the scarcity of affordable housing in the United States, particularly in more urban areas where homelessness is more prevalent, that is behind their inability to acquire or maintain housing.

By the numbers:

• There are 633,782 people experiencing homelessness on any given night in the United States.
• Of that number, 239,403 are people in families, and
• 392,945 are individuals.
• Slightly fewer than 16 percent of the homeless population are considered “chronically homeless,”and
• About 10 percent of the homeless population – 62,619 – are veterans (Jesuscaresatexit0.org, Snapshot-of-homelessness,2013).”

Without the concrete foundation of securing finances and a weak support system, it is more probable for an individual or a family to become homeless. Securing finances can be challenging and an uphill battle for an individual or for families (who are making certain wages) can only afford the basic necessities. So technically, a family who are claiming they are one paycheck away from being homeless are not lying.

 

Work Cited:

Kearns, B. Down For The Count: Overcoming the Census’s Neglect of the Homeless. Retrieved: 2013 http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/DownfortheCount_CensusReport.pdf

Retrieved 2013. http://www.jesuscaresatexit0.org/snapshot-of-homelessness/