From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Homeless family sleeping on the streets of
Kolkata, India
(top); a homeless man in
Paris, France
(bottom).
Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. People can be categorized as homeless if they are:
- living on the streets, also known as sleeping rough (primary homelessness);
- moving between temporary shelters, including houses of friends,
family, and emergency accommodation (secondary homelessness); and
- living in private boarding houses without a private bathroom or security of tenure (tertiary homelessness).
- have no permanent house or place to live safely
- Internally Displaced Persons, persons compelled to leave their places of domicile, who remain as refugees within their country's borders.
The rights of people suffering from the devastating effects of homelessness also vary from country to country. United States government homeless enumeration studies
also include people who sleep in a public or private place, which is
not designed for use as a regular sleeping accommodation for human
beings. Homelessness and poverty are interrelated.
There is no methodological consensus on counting homeless people and
identifying their needs; therefore, in most cities, only estimated
homeless populations are known.
In 2005, an estimated 100 million people worldwide were homeless, and
as many as one billion people (one in 6.5 at the time) live as squatters, refugees, or in temporary shelter, all lacking adequate housing.
Homeless child and adult living on the streets
Scarce and expensive housing is the main cause of rising homelessness in the United States.
United Nations definition
In 2004, the United Nations
sector of Economic and Social Affairs defined a homeless household as
those households without a shelter that would fall within the scope of
living quarters due to a lack of a steady income. The affected people
carry their few possessions with them, sleeping in the streets, in
doorways or on piers, or in another space, on a more or less random
basis.
In 2009, at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Conference of European Statisticians (CES), held in Geneva, Switzerland, the Group of Experts on Population and Housing Censuses defined homelessness as:
In its Recommendations for the Censuses of Population and Housing, the CES identifies homeless people under two broad groups:
- Primary homelessness (or rooflessness). This category
includes persons living in the streets without a shelter that would fall
within the scope of living quarters
- Secondary homelessness. This category may include persons with no
place of usual residence who move frequently between various types of
accommodations (including dwellings, shelters, and institutions for the
homeless or other living quarters). This category includes persons
living in private dwellings but reporting 'no usual address on their
census form.
The CES acknowledges that the above approach does not provide a full definition of the 'homeless'.
Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 10 December 1948 by the UN General Assembly, contains this text regarding housing and quality of living:
Everyone has the right to a
standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and
of his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and
necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of
unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of
livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
The ETHOS Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion was
developed as a means of improving the understanding and measurement of
homelessness in Europe, and to provide a common "language" for
transnational exchanges on homelessness. The ETHOS approach confirms
that homelessness is a process (rather than a static phenomenon) that
affects many vulnerable households at different points in their lives.
The typology was launched in 2005 and is used for different purposes: as a framework for debate,
for data collection purposes, policy purposes, monitoring purposes, and
in the media. This typology is an open exercise that makes abstraction
of existing legal definitions in the EU member states. It exists in 25
language versions, the translations being provided mainly by volunteer
translators.
Despite all the international agreements and efforts, many
countries and individuals in power do not consider housing as a human
right. Former U.S. President, Jimmy Carter, addressed this issue in a
2017 interview. He said, "A lot of people don't look at housing as a
human right, but it is." His view contrasts with many Americans,
especially those in power, that do not believe this right is in line
with the U.S. Constitution.
Other terms
Recent homeless enumeration survey documentation utilizes the term unsheltered homeless. The common colloquial term "street people"
does not fully encompass all unsheltered people, in that many such
persons do not spend their time in urban street environments. Many shun
such locales, because homeless people in urban environments may face the
risk of being robbed or assaulted. Some people convert unoccupied or
abandoned buildings ("squatting"), or inhabit mountainous areas or, more often, lowland meadows, creek banks, and beaches.
Many jurisdictions have developed programs to provide short-term
emergency shelter during particularly cold spells, often in churches or
other institutional properties. These are referred to as warming centers, and are credited by their advocates as lifesaving.
History
Early history through the 19th century
German illustration of a homeless mother and her children in the street, before 1883
A homeless man living in a
sewer,
Vienna, Austria,
c. 1900
A memorial to homeless people in Toronto, Canada
United Kingdom
Following the Peasants' Revolt, English constables were authorized under 1383 English Poor Laws statute to collar vagabonds and force them to show support; if they could not, the penalty was gaol. Vagabonds could be sentenced to the stocks for three days and nights; in 1530, whipping was added. The presumption was that vagabonds were unlicensed beggars.
In 1547, a bill was passed that subjected vagrants to some of the more
extreme provisions of the criminal law, namely two years servitude and
branding with a "V" as the penalty for the first offense and death for
the second. Large numbers of vagabonds were among the convicts transported to the American colonies in the 18th century. During the 16th century in England, the state first tried to give housing to vagrants instead of punishing them, by introducing bridewells to take vagrants and train them for a profession. In the 17th and 18th centuries, these were replaced by workhouses but these were intended to discourage too much reliance on state help.
United States
In
the Antebellum South, the availability of slave labor made it difficult
for poor white people to find work. To prevent poor white people from
cooperating with enslaved black people, slaveowners policed poor whites
with vagrancy laws.
After the American Civil War,
a large number (by the hundreds or thousands) of homeless men formed
part of a counterculture known as "hobohemia" all over the United
States. In smaller towns, hobos temporarily lived near train tracks and hopped onto trains to various destinations.
The growing movement toward social concern sparked the
development of rescue missions, such as the U.S. first rescue mission,
the New York City Rescue Mission, founded in 1872 by Jerry and Maria McAuley.
Modern
20th century
The U.S. Great Depression of the 1930s caused a devastating epidemic of poverty, hunger, and homelessness in the United States. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the presidency from Herbert Hoover in 1933, he passed the New Deal,
which greatly expanded social welfare, including providing funds to
build public housing. This marked the end of the Great Depression.
How the Other Half Lives and Jack London's The People of the Abyss
(1903) discussed homelessness and raised public awareness, which caused
some changes in building codes and some social conditions. In England,
dormitory housing called "spikes" was provided by local boroughs. By the
1930s in England, 30,000 people were living in these facilities. In
1933, George Orwell wrote about poverty in London and Paris, in his book Down and Out in Paris and London.
In general, in most countries, many towns and cities had an area that
contained the poor, transients, and afflicted, such as a "skid row". In New York City, for example, there was an area known as "the Bowery", traditionally, where people with an alcohol use disorder were to be found sleeping on the streets, bottle in hand.
In the 1960s in the U.K., the nature and growing problem of
homelessness changed in England as public concern grew. The number of
people living "rough" in the streets had increased dramatically.
However, beginning with the Conservative
administration's Rough Sleeper Initiative, the number of people
sleeping rough in London fell dramatically. This initiative was
supported further by the incoming Labour administration from 2009
onwards with the publication of the 'Coming in from the Cold' strategy
published by the Rough Sleepers Unit, which proposed and delivered a
massive increase in the number of hostel bed spaces in the capital and
an increase in funding for street outreach teams, who work with rough
sleepers to enable them to access services.
Scotland saw a slightly different picture, with the impact of the
right to buy ending in a devastating drop in available social housing,
something that has never recovered. The 1980s and the 1990s resulted in
an ever-increasing picture of people becoming homeless, with very few
rights to provide access to allow change.
2000s
This
picture changed in Scotland in 2001, as the Scottish Parliament came
into place. It was agreed by all parties that a ten-year plan to
eradicate homelessness by the end of 2012 would be implemented. The
minister of housing met with the third sector and Local Authorities
every six weeks, checking on progress, whilst consultations brought
about legislative change, alongside work to prevent homelessness. There
was a peak in applications around 2005, but from there onwards figures
dropped year on year for the next eight years. However, with a focus on
the broader numbers of people experiencing homelessness, many people
with higher levels of need got caught in the system. Work from 2017
started to address this, with a framework currently in place to work
towards a day where everyone in Scotland has a home suitable to meet
their needs.
In 2002, research showed that children and families were the
largest growing segment of the homeless population in the United States, and this has presented new challenges to agencies.
In the U.S., the government asked many major cities to come up with a ten-year plan to end homelessness. One of the results of this was a "Housing First"
solution. The Housing First program offers homeless people access to
housing without having to undergo tests for sobriety and drug usage. The
Housing First program seems to benefit homeless people in every aspect
except for substance abuse, for which the program offers little
accountability.
An emerging consensus is that the Housing First program still gives
clients a higher chance at retaining their housing once they get it. A few critical voices argue that it misuses resources and does more harm than good; they suggest that it encourages rent-seeking and that there is not yet enough evidence-based research on the effects of this program on the homeless population.
Some formerly homeless people, who were finally able to obtain housing
and other assets which helped to return to a normal lifestyle, have
donated money and volunteer services to the organizations that provided
aid to them during their homelessness.
Alternatively, some social service entities that help homeless people
now employ formerly homeless individuals to assist in the care process.
Homeless children in the United States. The number of homeless children reached record highs in 2011, 2012, and 2013 at about three times their number in 1983.
Homelessness has migrated toward rural and suburban areas. The number
of homeless people has not changed dramatically but the number of
homeless families has increased according to a report by HUD. The United States Congress appropriated $25 million in the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants for 2008 to show the effectiveness of Rapid Re-housing programs in reducing family homelessness. In February 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, part of which addressed homelessness prevention, allocating $1.5 billion
for a Homeless Prevention Fund. The Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG)
program's name was changed to Emergency Solution Grant (ESG) program,
and funds were reallocated to assist with homeless prevention and rapid
re-housing for families and individuals.
Causes
Major reasons for homelessness include:
Rent and eviction
Gentrification
is a process in which a formerly affordable neighborhood becomes
popular with wealthier people, raising housing prices and pushing poorer
residents out. Gentrification can cause or influence evictions,
foreclosures, and rent regulation.
Increased wealth disparity and income inequality cause distortions in the housing market that push rent burdens higher, making housing unaffordable.
In many countries, people lose their homes by government orders
to make way for newer upscale high-rise buildings, roadways, and other
governmental needs. The compensation may be minimal, in which case the former occupants cannot find appropriate new housing and become homeless.
Mortgage foreclosures
where mortgage holders see the best solution to a loan default is to
take and sell the house to pay off the debt can leave people homeless. Foreclosures on landlords often lead to the eviction of their tenants. "The Sarasota, Florida, Herald Tribune
noted that, by some estimates, more than 311,000 tenants nationwide
have been evicted from homes this year after lenders took over the
properties."
Rent regulation also has a small effect on shelter and street populations.
This is largely due to rent control reducing the quality and quantity
of housing. For example, a 2019 study found that San Francisco's rent
control laws reduced tenant displacement from rent-controlled units in
the short-term, but resulted in landlords removing thirty percent of the
rent-controlled units from the rental market, (by conversion to condos or TICs) which led to a fifteen percent citywide decrease in total rental units, and a seven percent increase in citywide rents.
Economics
Lack of jobs that pay living wages, lack of affordable housing, and lack of health and social services can lead to poverty and homelessness.
Factors that can lead to economic struggle include neighborhood
gentrification (as previously discussed), job loss, debt, loss of money
or assets due to divorce, death of breadwinning spouse, being denied
jobs due to discrimination, and many others.
Poverty
Poverty
is a significant factor in homelessness. Alleviation of poverty, as a
result, plays an essential role in eliminating homelessness. Some
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have studied 'unconditional cash
transfers' (UCTs) to low-income families and individuals to reduce
poverty in developing countries. Despite their initial concern about
UCT’s potentially negative effects on the recipients, the researchers
found promising results. The study in Kenya found that assisted
households increased their consumption and savings. While the families
spent more on their food and food security, they did not incur any
expenses on unnecessary goods or services.
This study shows that a proper approach to poverty could effectively
eliminate this factor as part of a solution to homelessness. Providing
access to education and employment to low-income families and
individuals must also be considered to combat poverty and prevent
homelessness.
Physical and mental health
Homelessness is closely connected to declines in physical and mental health.
Most people who use homeless shelters frequently, face multiple
disadvantages, such as the increased prevalence of physical and mental
health problems, disabilities, addiction, poverty, and discrimination.
Studies have shown that homeless people have a high level of morbidity
and mortality. Moreover, they suffer from a wide range of medical
problems, including serious infectious diseases, e.g., tuberculosis,
HIV/AIDs and STDs, addictions, and mental illnesses. Notably, the lack
of access to adequate medical care for homeless people adversely affects
the healthcare system as well. Homeless people often obtain their care
in hospital emergency departments,
partly due to their inability to pay for medical services. Statistics
demonstrate that the homeless are admitted to a hospital five times more
than the general public and stay under care much longer. Their
prolonged hospital stays impose a significant cost on the healthcare
system and deprive others of receiving timely healthcare.
Studies show that preventive and primary care (which homeless
people are not receiving) substantially lower overall healthcare costs.
Unfortunately, in terms of providing adequate treatment to homeless
people for their mental illness, the healthcare system’s performance has
not been promising, either.
It is apparent that a comprehensive solution to homelessness must
include an effective approach to providing healthcare to homeless
people.
Disabilities,
especially where disability services are non-existent, inconvenient, or
poorly performing can impact a person's ability to support house
payments, mortgages, or rent, especially if they are unable to work. Traumatic brain injury
is one main disability that can account for homelessness. According to a
Canadian survey, traumatic brain injury is widespread among homeless
people and, for around 70 percent of respondents, can be attributed to a
time "before the onset of homelessness"
Lack of housing serves as a social determinant of mental health. Being afflicted with a mental disorder, including substance use disorders, where mental health services are unavailable or difficult to access can also drive homelessness for the same reasons as disabilities.
A United States federal survey done in 2005 indicated that at least
one-third of homeless men and women have serious psychiatric disorders
or problems. Autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia are the top two common mental disabilities among the U.S. homeless. Personality disorders are also very prevalent, especially Cluster A. Substance abuse can also cause homelessness from behavioral patterns
associated with addiction, that alienate an addicted individual's family
and friends, who could otherwise provide support during difficult
economic times.
Discrimination
A
history of experiencing domestic violence can also attribute to
homelessness. Compared to housed women, homeless women were more likely
to report childhood histories of abuse, as well as more current physical
abuse by male partners.
Gender disparities also influence the demographics of
homelessness. The experiences of homeless women and women in poverty are
often overlooked, however, they experience specific gender-based
victimization. As individuals with little to no physical or material
capital, homeless women are particularly targeted by male law
enforcement, and men living on the street. It has been found that
"street-based homelessness dominates mainstream understanding of
homelessness and it is indeed an environment in which males have far
greater power (O'Grady and Gaietz, 2004)."
Women on the street are often motivated to gain capital through
affiliation and relationships with men, rather than facing homelessness
alone. Within these relationships, women are still likely to be
physically and sexually abused.
Social exclusion related to sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics
can also attribute to homelessness based on discrimination.
Relationship breakdown, particularly with young people and their
parents, such as disownment due to sexuality or gender identity is one example.
Former imprisonment status and a criminal history can also affect securing housing.
Human and natural disasters
Natural disasters, including but not limited to earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions can cause homelessness. An example is the 1999 Athens earthquake in Greece, in which many middle class people became homeless, with some of them living in containers, especially in the Nea Ionia
earthquake survivors container city provided by the government; in most
cases, their only property that survived the quake was their car. Such
people are known in Greece as seismopathis, meaning earthquake-struck.
War or armed conflict can create refugees
fleeing the violence. Whether they be either domestic or foreign to the
country, the number of migrants can outstrip the supply of affordable
housing, leaving some sections of this population to be homeless.
Foster care
Transitions from foster care
and other public systems can also impact homelessness; specifically,
youth who have been involved in, or are a part of the foster care
system, are more likely to become homeless. Most leaving the system have
no support and no income, making it nearly impossible to break the
cycle, and forcing them to live on the streets. There is also a lack of
shelter beds for youth; various shelters have stringent admissions
policies.
Choice
Although uncommon, some choose to be homeless as a personal lifestyle choice. There are different reasons why someone would choose to become homeless. They may not want to contribute to a capitalist society, which includes having a job, spending and owing money, and paying taxes to the government. The main aspect of freeganism
is anti-consumerism and avoiding spending excessive amounts of money at
all costs. Some see homelessness as more 'free' than living in a house
or apartment and prefer being in nature, as well as away from other
people. Some may have had a traumatic experience in a house or
apartment, such as a fire, and feel safer outside, being able to survey
their surroundings.
Challenges
The basic problem of homelessness is the need for personal shelter, warmth, and safety. Other difficulties include:
- Hygiene and sanitary facilities
- Hostility from the public and laws against urban vagrancy
- Cleaning and drying of clothes
- Obtaining, preparing, and storing food
- Keeping contact with friends, family, and government service providers without a permanent location or mailing address
- Medical problems, including issues caused by an individual's homeless state (e.g., hypothermia or frostbite
from sleeping outside in cold weather), or issues that are exacerbated
by homelessness due to lack of access to treatment (e.g., mental health and the individual not having a place to store prescription drugs)
- Personal security, quiet, and privacy, especially for sleeping, bathing, and other hygiene activities
- Safekeeping of bedding, clothing, and possessions, which may have to be carried at all times
People experiencing homelessness face many problems beyond the lack
of a safe and suitable home. They are often faced with reduced access to
private and public services and vital necessities:
- General rejection or discrimination from other people
- Increased risk of suffering violence and abuse
- Limited access to education
- Loss of usual relationships with the mainstream
- Not being seen as suitable for employment
- Reduced access to banking services
- Reduced access to communications technology
- Reduced access to healthcare and dental services
- Targeting by municipalities to exclude from public space
- Implication of hostile architecture
- Difficulty forming trust with services, systems, and other people;
exacerbating pre-existing difficulty accessing aid and escaping
homelessness, particularly present in the chronically homeless.
Statistics from the past twenty years, in Scotland, demonstrate that
the biggest cause of homelessness is varying forms of relationship
breakdown.
There is sometimes corruption and theft by the employees of a shelter, as evidenced by a 2011 investigative report by FOX 25 TV in Boston,
wherein several Boston public shelter employees were found stealing
large amounts of from the shelter's kitchen for their private use and
catering over time.
Homeless people are often obliged to adopt various strategies of
self-presentation to maintain a sense of dignity, which constrains their
interaction with passers-by, and leads to suspicion and stigmatization
by the mainstream public.
Homelessness is also a risk factor for depression caused by
prejudice. When someone is prejudiced against people who are homeless
and then becomes homeless themselves, their anti-homelessness prejudice
turns inward, causing depression. "Mental disorders, physical
disability, homelessness, and having a sexually transmitted infection
are all stigmatized statuses someone can gain despite having negative
stereotypes about those groups." Difficulties can compound exponentially. A study found that in the city of Hong Kong
over half of the homeless people in the city (56%) had some degree of
mental illness. Only 13 percent of the 56 percent were receiving
treatment for their condition leaving a huge portion of homeless
untreated for their mental illness.
The issue of anti-homeless architecture came to light in 2014,
after a photo displayed hostile features (spikes on the floor) in
London, and took social media by storm. The photo of an anti-homeless
structure was a classic example of hostile architecture, in an attempt
to discourage people from attempting to access or use public space in
irregular ways. However, although this has only recently came to light, hostile architecture has been around for a long time in many places. An example of this is a low overpass that was put in place between New York City and Long Island. Robert Moses, an urban planner, designed it this way in an attempt to prevent public buses from being able to pass through it.
Healthcare
Student
nurse at Jacksonville University School of Nursing takes the blood
pressure of a homeless veteran during the annual Stand Down for
Homelessness activity in Savannah, Georgia.
Health care for homeless people is a major public health challenge.
When compared to the general population, people who are homeless
experience higher rates of adverse physical and mental health outcomes.
Chronic disease severity, respiratory conditions, rates of mental health
illnesses, and substance use are all often greater in homeless
populations than in the general population. Homelessness is also associated with a high risk of suicide attempts.
Homeless people are more likely to suffer injuries and medical problems
from their lifestyle on the street, which includes poor nutrition,
exposure to the severe elements of weather, and higher exposure to
violence. Yet at the same time, they have reduced access to public
medical services or clinics,
in part because they often lack identification or registration for
public healthcare services. There are significant challenges in treating
homeless people who have psychiatric disorders because clinical
appointments may not be kept, their continuing whereabouts are unknown,
their medicines may not be taken as prescribed, medical and psychiatric
histories are not accurate, and other reasons. Because many homeless people have mental illnesses, this has presented a care crisis.
The conditions affecting homeless people are somewhat specialized
and have opened a new area of medicine tailored to this population.
Skin conditions, including scabies,
are common, because homeless people are exposed to extreme cold in the
winter, and have little access to bathing facilities. They have problems
caring for their feet, and have more severe dental problems than the general population. Diabetes, especially untreated, is widespread in the homeless population. Specialized medical textbooks have been written to address this for providers.
Due to the demand for free medical services by homeless people,
it might take months to get a minimal dental appointment in a free-care
clinic. Communicable diseases are of great concern, especially tuberculosis, which spreads more easily in crowded homeless shelters in high-density urban settings.
There has been ongoing concern and studies about the health and
wellness of the older homeless population, typically ages 50 to 64 and
older, as to whether they are significantly more sickly than their
younger counterparts, and if they are under-served.
A 2011 study led by Dr. Rebecca T. Brown in Boston, conducted by the Institute for Aging Research (an affiliate of Harvard Medical School), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program found the elderly homeless
population had "higher rates of geriatric syndromes, including
functional decline, falls, frailty, and depression than seniors in the
general population, and that many of these conditions may be easily
treated if detected". The report was published in the Journal of
Geriatric Internal Medicine.
There are government avenues which provide resources for the
development of healthcare for homeless people. In the United States, the
Bureau of Primary Health Care has a program that provides grants to
fund the delivery of healthcare to homeless people. According to 2011 UDS, data community health centers were able to provide service to 1,087,431 homeless individuals.
Many nonprofit and religious organizations provide healthcare services
to homeless people. These organizations help meet the large need which
exists for expanding healthcare for homeless people.
There have been significant numbers of unsheltered persons dying of hypothermia, adding impetus to the trend of establishing warming centers, as well as extending enumeration surveys with vulnerability indexes.
Effect on life expectancy
In
1999, Dr. Susan Barrow of the Columbia University Center for
Homelessness Prevention Studies reported in a study that the
"age-adjusted death rates of homeless men and women were four times
those of the general U.S. population and two to three times those of the
general population of New York City". A report commissioned by homeless charity Crisis
in 2011 found that on average, homeless people in the U.K. have a life
expectancy of 47 years, 30 years younger than the rest of the
population.
Health impacts of extreme weather events
People experiencing homelessness are at a significantly increased
risk of the effects of extreme weather events. Such weather events
include extreme heat and cold, floods, storm surges, heavy rain, and
droughts. While there are many contributing factors to these events,
climate change is driving an increasing frequency and intensity of these
events.
The homeless population is considerably more vulnerable to these
weather events, due to their higher rates of chronic disease, and lower
socioeconomic status. Despite having a minimal carbon footprint,
homeless people, unfortunately, experience a disproportionate burden of
the effects of climate change.
Homeless persons have increased vulnerability to extreme weather
events for many reasons. They are disadvantaged in most social
determinants of health, including lack of housing and access to adequate
food and water, reduced access to health care, and difficulty in
maintaining health care.
They have significantly higher rates of chronic disease including
respiratory disease and infections, gastrointestinal disease,
musculoskeletal problems, and mental health disease.
In fact, self-reported rates of respiratory diseases (including asthma,
chronic bronchitis, and emphysema) are double that of the general
population.
The homeless population often lives in higher-risk urban areas,
with increased exposure and little protection from the elements. They
also have limited access to clean drinking water and other methods of
cooling down. The built environment in urban areas also contributes to the "heat island
effect", the phenomenon whereby cities experience higher temperatures
due to the predominance of dark, paved surfaces, and lack of vegetation.
Homeless populations are often excluded from disaster planning efforts,
further increasing their vulnerability when these events occur.
Without the means to escape extreme temperatures and seek proper
shelter, and cooling or warming resources, homeless people are often
left to suffer the brunt of the extreme weather.
The health effects that result from extreme weather include
exacerbation of chronic diseases and acute illnesses. Pre-existing
conditions can be greatly exacerbated by extreme heat and cold,
including cardiovascular, respiratory, skin, and renal disease,
often resulting in higher morbidity and mortality during extreme
weather. Acute conditions such as sunburn, dehydration, heat stroke, and
allergic reactions are also common. In addition, a rise in insect bites
can lead to vector-borne infections.
Mental health conditions can also be impacted by extreme weather events
as a result of lack of sleep, increased alcohol consumption, reduced
access to resources, and reduced ability to adjust to environmental
changes. In fact, pre-existing psychiatric illness has been shown to triple the risk of death from extreme heat.
Overall, extreme weather events appear to have a "magnifying effect" in
exacerbating the underlying prevalent mental and physical health
conditions of homeless populations.
Case study: Hurricane Katrina
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina,
a category-5 hurricane, made landfall in Florida and Louisiana. It
particularly affected the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas.
Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest hurricane in the US in seven
decades, with more than 1,600 confirmed deaths, and more than 1,000
people missing. The hurricane disproportionately affected marginalized
individuals, and individuals with lower socioeconomic status (i.e., 93%
of shelter residents were African–American, 32 percent had household
incomes below $10,000/year and 54 percent were uninsured).
The storm nearly doubled the number of homeless people in New Orleans.
While in most cities, homeless people account for one percent of the
population, in New Orleans', the homeless account for four percent of
the population. In addition to its devastating effects on infrastructure
and the economy, the estimated prevalence of mental illness and the
incidence of West Nile virus more than doubled after Hurricane Katrina in the hurricane-affected regions.
Legal documentation
Homeless
people may find it difficult to document their date of birth or their
address. Because homeless people usually have no place to store
possessions, they often lose their belongings, including identification
and other documents, or find them destroyed by police or others. Without
a photo ID,
homeless persons cannot get a job or access many social services,
including healthcare. They can be denied access to even the most basic
assistance: clothing closets, food pantries, certain public benefits,
and in some cases, emergency shelters. Obtaining replacement
identification is difficult. Without an address, birth certificates
cannot be mailed. Fees may be cost-prohibitive for impoverished persons.
And some states will not issue birth certificates unless the person has
photo identification, creating a Catch-22.
This problem is far less acute in countries that provide free-at-use
health care, such as the U.K., where hospitals are open-access day and
night and make no charges for treatment. In the U.S., free-care clinics
for homeless people and other people do exist in major cities, but often
attract more demand than they can meet.
Victimization by violent crimes
Homeless
people are often the victims of violent crime. A 2007 study found that
the rate of violent crimes against homeless people in the United States
is increasing.
A study of women veterans found that homelessness is associated with
domestic violence, both directly, as the result of leaving an abusive
partner, and indirectly, due to trauma, mental health conditions, and
substance abuse.
Stigma
Conditions such as alcoholism and mental illness are often associated with homelessness.
Many people fear homeless people, due to the stigma surrounding the
homeless community. Surveys have revealed that before spending time with
homeless people, most people fear them, but after spending time with
homeless people, that fear is lessened or is no longer there. Another effect of this stigma is isolation.
The stigmas of homelessness can thus be divided into three major categories in general:
- Attributing homelessness to personal incompetency and health
conditions (e.g., unemployment, mental health issues, substance abuse,
etc.);
- Seeing homeless people as posing threats to one's safety;
- De-sanitizing homeless people (i.e., seeing them as pathogens).
Past research has shown that those types of stigmas are being
reinforced through the fact that one is homeless and have a negative
impact on effective public policymaking in terms of reducing
homelessness. When a person lives on a street, many aspects of their personal
situations, such as mental health issues and alcoholism, are more likely
to be exposed to the public as compared to people who are not homeless
and have access to resources that will help improve their personal
crises.
Such lack of privacy inevitably reinforces stigma by increasing
observations of stereotypes for the public. Furthermore, the media often
attributes those personal crises to the direct cause of crimes, further
leading the public to believe that homeless people are a threat to
their safety. Many also believe that contacts with homeless people
increase their chance of contracting diseases given that they lack
access to stable, sanitary living conditions.
Those types of stigmas are intertwined with each other when shaping
public opinions on policies related to the homeless population,
resulting in many ineffective policies that do not reduce homelessness
at all. An example of such ineffective but somewhat popular policies is imposing bans on sleeping on the streets.
Relying on the famous contact hypothesis, researchers argue that
increasing contact between the homeless population and non-homeless
population is likely to change public opinions on this out-group and
make the public more well-informed when it comes to policymaking.
While some believe that the contact hypothesis is only valid on the
condition that the context and type of contact are specified, in the
case of reducing discrimination against the homelessness population,
some survey data indicate that the context (e.g., the proportion of the
homeless population in one's city) and type of contact (e.g., TV shows
about the homeless population or interpersonal conversations about
homelessness) do not produce many variations as they all increase
positive attitudes towards homeless people and public policies that aid
this group.
Given that the restrictions of contexts and types of contact to reduce
stigma are minimal, this finding is informative and significant to the
government when it comes to making policies to offer institutional
support for reducing discrimination in a country and for gauging public
opinions on their proposed policies to reduce homelessness.
Global statistics
Demographics
Homeless man sleeping in London, 2015
In western countries such as the United States, the typical homeless person is male and single,
with the Netherlands reporting 80 percent of homeless people aged 18–65
to be men. Some cities have particularly high percentages of males in
homeless populations, with men comprising 85 percent of the homeless in Dublin, Ireland.
Non-white people are also overrepresented in homeless populations, with
such groups two and one-half times more likely to be homeless in the
U.S. The median age of homeless people is approximately 35.
Statistics for developed countries
In 2005, an estimated 100 million people worldwide were homeless.
The following statistics indicate the approximate average number of
homeless people at any one time. Each country has a different approach
to counting homeless people, and estimates of homelessness made by
different organizations vary wildly, so comparisons should be made with
caution.
- European Union: 3,000,000 (UN-HABITAT 2004)
- England: 11,580 single households were assessed as rough
sleeping at the point of approach in 2021, up 39 percent from 2019–20,
with 119,400 households owed a prevention duty in 2020–21
- Scotland: 27,571 households were assessed as homeless in 2020 – 21, a decrease of 13 percent compared to 2019/20
- Canada: 150,000
- Australia: On census night in 2006 there were 105,000 people
homeless across Australia, an increase from the 99,900 Australians who
were counted as homeless in the 2001 census
- United States:
The HUD 2018 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress
reports that in a single night, roughly 553,000 people were experiencing
homelessness in the United States.
According to HUD's July 2010 fifth Homeless Assessment Report to
Congress, in a single night in January 2010, the single-point analysis
reported to HUD showed 649,917 people experiencing homelessness. This
number had increased from January 2009's 643,067. The unsheltered count
increased by 2.8 percent while the sheltered count remained the same.
Also, HUD reported the number of chronically homeless people (persons
with severe disabilities and long homeless histories) decreased by one
percent between 2009 and 2010, from 110,917 to 109,812. Since 2007 this
number had decreased by 11 percent. This was mostly due to the expansion
of permanent supportive housing programs.
- The change in numbers has occurred due to the prevalence of
homelessness in local communities rather than other changes. According
to HUD's July 2010 Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, more than
1.59 million people spent at least one night in an emergency shelter or
transitional housing program during the 2010 reporting period, a 2.2
percent increase from 2009. Most users of homeless shelters used only an
emergency shelter, while 17 percent used only transitional housing, and
less than 5 percent used both during the reporting period. Since 2007,
the annual number of those using homeless shelters in cities has
decreased from 1.22 million to 1.02 million, a 17 percent decrease. The
number of persons using homeless shelters in suburban and rural areas
increased by 57 percent, from 367,000 to 576,000.
In the U.S., the federal government's HUD agency has required
federally-funded organizations to use a computer tracking system for
homeless people and their statistics, called HMIS (Homeless Management
Information System). There has been some opposition to this kind of tracking by privacy advocacy groups, such as EPIC.
- However, HUD considers its reporting techniques to be reasonably accurate for homeless in shelters and programs in its Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress.Determining and counting the number of homeless is very difficult in general due to their lifestyle habits. There are so-called "hidden homeless" out of sight of the normal population and perhaps staying on private property.
Various countries, states, and cities have come up with different means
and techniques to calculate an approximate count. For example, a
one-night "homeless census count", called a point-in-time (PIT) count,
usually held in early winter for the year, is a technique used by
several American cities, such as Boston. Los Angeles uses a mixed set of techniques for counting, including the PIT street count.
- In 2003, The United States Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD) had begun requiring a PIT count in all "Continuum of
Care" communities which required them to report a count of people,
housing status, and geographic locations of individuals counted. Some
communities provide sub-population information to the PIT, such as
information on veterans, youth, and elderly individuals, as done in
Boston.
- Japan: 20,000–100,000 (some figures put it at 200,000–400,000). Reports show that homelessness is on the rise in Japan since the mid-1990s.
There are more homeless men than homeless women in Japan because it is
usually easier for women to get a job and they are less isolated than
men. Also, Japanese families usually provide more support for women than
they do for men.
Developing and undeveloped countries
The number of homeless people worldwide grew steadily in 2005. In some developing countries such as Nigeria and South Africa, homelessness is rampant, with millions of children living and working on the streets.
Homelessness has become a problem in the countries of China, India,
Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines despite their growing
prosperity, partly due to migrant workers who have trouble finding
permanent homes.
Determining the true number of homeless people worldwide varies between 100 million and one billion people based on the exact definition used. Refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced persons
can also be considered homeless in that they, too, experience
"marginalization, minority status, socioeconomic disadvantage, poor
physical health, the collapse of social supports, psychological
distress, and difficulty adapting to host cultures" such as the domestic
homeless.
In the past twenty years, scholars such as Tipple and Speak have
begun to refer to homelessness as the "antithesis or absence of home"
rather than rooflessness or the "lack of physical shelter." This
complication in the homelessness debate further delineates the idea that
home consists of an adequate shelter, an experienced and dynamic place
that serves as a "base" for nurturing human relationships and the "free
development of individuals" and their identity.
Thus, the home is perceived to be an extension of one's self and
identity. In contrast, the homeless experience, according to Moore,
constitutes more as a "lack of belonging" and a loss of identity that
leads to individuals or communities feeling "out of place" once they can
no longer call a place of their own home.
This new perspective on homelessness sheds light on the plight of
refugees, a population of stateless people who are not normally
included in the mainstream definition of homelessness. It has also
created problems for researchers because the nature of "counting"
homeless people across the globe relies heavily on who is considered a
homeless person. Homeless individuals, and by extension refugees, can be
seen as lacking lack the "crucible of our modern society" and lacking a
way of actively belonging to and engaging with their respective
communities or cultures.
As Casavant demonstrates, a spectrum of definitions for homelessness,
called the "continuum of homelessness", should refer to refugees as
homeless individuals because they not only lose their homes, but are
also afflicted with a myriad of problems that parallel those affecting
the domestic homeless, such as "[a lack of] stable, safe and healthy
housing, an extremely low income, adverse discrimination in access to
services, with problems of mental health, alcohol, and drug abuse or
social disorganization".
Refugees, like domestic homeless people, lose their source of identity
and way of connecting with their culture for an indefinite period.
Thus, the current definition of homelessness, unfortunately, allows
people to simplistically assume that homeless people, including
refugees, are merely "without a place to live" when that is not the
case. As numerous studies show, forced migration and displacement bring
with it another host of problems including socioeconomic instability,
"increased stress, isolation, and new responsibilities" in a completely
new environment.
For people in Russia, especially the youth, alcohol, and
substance use is a major cause and reason for becoming and continuing to
be homeless. The United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat) wrote in its Global Report on Human Settlements
in 1995: "Homelessness is a problem in developed as well as in
developing countries. In London, for example, life expectancy among
homeless people is more than 25 years lower than the national average."
Poor urban housing conditions are a global problem, but
conditions are worst in developing countries. Habitat says that today
600 million people live in life- and health-threatening homes in Africa,
Asia, and Latin America. For example, more than three in four young
people had insufficient means of shelter and sanitation in some African
countries like Malawi.
The report further states, "The threat of mass homelessness is greatest
in those regions because that is where the population is growing
fastest. By 2015, the 10 largest cities in the world will be in Asia,
Latin America, and Africa. Nine of them will be in developing countries:
Mumbai, India – 27.4 million; Lagos, Nigeria – 24.4; Shanghai,
China – 23.4; Jakarta, Indonesia – 21.2; São Paulo, Brazil – 20.8;
Karachi, Pakistan – 20.6; Beijing, China – 19.4; Dhaka, Bangladesh – 19;
Mexico City, Mexico – 18.8. The only city in a developed country that
will be in the top ten is Tokyo, Japan – 28.7 million."
In 2008, Dr. Anna Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-HABITAT, referring to the recent report "State of the World's Cities Report 2008/2009",
said that the world economic crisis we are in should be viewed as a
"housing finance crisis" in which the poorest of the poor were left to
fend for themselves.
Refuges and alternative accommodation
Shelter for homeless people in Poznan, Poland
There are various places where a homeless person might seek refuge:
- 24-hour Internet cafes are now used by over 5,000 Japanese "Net cafe refugees".
An estimated 75 percent of Japan's 3,200 all-night internet cafes cater
to regular overnight guests, who in some cases have become their main
source of income.
- 24-hour McDonald's restaurants are used by "McRefugees" in Japan, China, and Hong Kong. There are about 250 McRefugees in Hong Kong.
- Couch surfing:
temporary sleeping arrangements in dwellings of friends or family
members ("couch surfing"). This can also include housing in exchange for
labor or sex. Couch surfers may be harder to recognize than street
homeless people and are often omitted from housing counts.
- Homeless shelters: including emergency cold-weather shelters opened by churches or community agencies, which may consist of cots in a heated warehouse, or temporary Christmas Shelters.
More elaborate homeless shelters such as Pinellas Hope in Florida
provide residents with a recreation tent, a dining tent, laundry
facilities, outdoor tents, casitas, and shuttle services that help
inhabitants get to their jobs each day.
- Inexpensive boarding houses: have also been called flophouses. They offer cheap, low-quality temporary lodging.
- Inexpensive motels offer cheap, low-quality temporary lodging. However, some who can afford housing live in a motel by choice. For example, David and Jean Davidson spent 22 years at various U.K. Travelodges.
- Public places: Parks, bus or train stations, public libraries,
airports, public transportation vehicles (by continual riding where
unlimited passes are available), hospital lobbies or waiting areas,
college campuses, and 24-hour businesses such as coffee shops.
Many public places use security guards or police to prevent people from
loitering or sleeping at these locations for a variety of reasons,
including image, safety, and comfort of patrons.
- Shantytowns: ad hoc dwelling sites of improvised shelters and shacks, usually near rail yards, interstates
and high transportation veins. Some shantytowns have interstitial
tenting areas, but the predominant feature consists of hard structures.
Each pad or site tends to accumulate roofing, sheathing, plywood, and
nailed two-by-fours.
- Single room occupancy (more commonly abbreviated to SRO):
a form of housing that is typically aimed at residents with low or
minimal incomes who rent small, furnished single rooms with a bed,
chair, and sometimes a small desk. SRO units are rented out as permanent residence or primary residence
to individuals, within a multi-tenant building where tenants share a
kitchen, toilets or bathrooms. In the 2010s, some SRO units may have a
small refrigerator, microwave, and sink. (also called a "residential hotel").
- Squatting
in an unoccupied structure where a homeless person may live without
payment and the owner's knowledge or permission. Often these buildings
are long abandoned and not safe to occupy.
- Tent cities:
ad hoc campsites of tents and improvised shelters consisting of
tarpaulins and blankets, often near industrial and institutionally zoned
real estate such as rail yards, highways and high transportation veins. A few more elaborate tent cities, such as Dignity Village,
are hybrids of tent cities and shantytowns. Tent cities frequently
consist only of tents and fabric-improvised structures, with no
semi-permanent structures at all.
- Outdoors: on the ground or in a sleeping bag, tent, or improvised shelter, such as a large cardboard box, under a bridge, in an urban doorway, in a park, or in a vacant lot.
- Tunnels such as abandoned subway, maintenance, or train tunnels are popular among long-term or permanent homeless people. The inhabitants of such refuges are called in some places, like New York City, "Mole People".
Natural caves beneath urban centers allow for places where people can
congregate. Leaking water pipes, electric wires, and steam pipes allow
for some of the essentials of living.
- Vehicles: cars or trucks used as temporary or sometimes long-term
living quarters, for example by those recently evicted from a home. Some
people live in recreational vehicles (RVs), school buses, vans, sport utility vehicles, covered pickup trucks, station wagons, sedans, or hatchbacks. The vehicular homeless, according to homeless advocates and researchers, comprise the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population.
Many cities have safe parking programs in which lawful sites are
permitted at churches or in other out-of-the-way locations. For example,
because it is illegal to park on the street in Santa Barbara,
California, the New Beginnings Counseling Center worked with the city to
make designated parking lots available to homeless people.
Other housing options
Transitional housing
provides temporary housing for certain segments of the homeless
population, including the working homeless, and is meant to transition
residents into permanent, affordable housing. This is usually a room or
apartment in a residence with support services. The transitional time
can be relatively short, for example, one or two years, and in that time
the person must file for and obtain permanent housing along with
gainful employment or income, even if Social Security or assistance.
Sometimes transitional housing programs charge a room and board fee,
maybe 30 percent of an individual's income, which is sometimes partially
or fully refunded after the person procures a permanent residence. In
the U.S., federal funding for transitional housing programs was
originally allocated in the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act of
1986.
Foyers
are a specific type of transitional housing designed for homeless or
at-risk teens. Foyers are generally institutions that provide affordable
accommodation as well as support and training services for residents.
They were pioneered in the 1990s in the United Kingdom, but have been
adopted in areas in Australia and the United States as well.
Supportive housing
is a combination of housing and services intended as a cost-effective
way to help people live more stable, productive lives. Supportive
housing works well for those who face the most complex
challenges – individuals and families confronted with homelessness who
also have very low incomes or serious, persistent issues such as
substance use disorder, addictions, alcohol use disorder, mental illness, HIV/AIDS,
or other serious challenges. A 2021 systematic review of 28
interventions, mostly in North America, showed that interventions with
the highest levels of support led to improved outcomes for both housing
stability, and health outcomes.
Government initiatives: In South Australia, the state government
of Premier Mike Rann (2002–2011) committed substantial funding to a
series of initiatives designed to combat homelessness. Advised by Social
Inclusion Commissioner David Cappo and the founder of New York's Common Ground program, Rosanne Haggerty, the Rann government established Common Ground Adelaide,
building high-quality inner city apartments (combined with intensive
support) for "rough sleeping" homeless people. The government also
funded the Street to Home program and a hospital liaison service
designed to assist homeless people admitted to the emergency departments
of Adelaide's major public hospitals. Rather than being released back
into homelessness, patients identified as rough sleepers were found
accommodation backed by professional support. Common Ground and Street
to Home now operate across Australia in other States.
Assistance and resources
Most countries provide a variety of services to assist homeless
people. Provisions of food, shelter, and clothing may be organized and
run by community organizations, often with the help of volunteers, or by
government departments. Assistance programs may be supported by the
government, charities, churches, and individual donors. However, not all
homeless people can access these resources. In 1998, a study by Koegel
and Schoeni of a homeless population in Los Angeles, California, found
that a significant minority of homeless did not participate in
government assistance programs, with high transaction costs being a likely contributing factor.
Social supports
While some homeless people are known to have a community with one another, providing each other various types of support, people who are not homeless also may provide them friendship, relational care, and other forms of assistance. Such social support may occur through a formal process, such as under the auspices of a non-governmental organization, religious organization, or homeless ministry, or may be done on an individual basis.
Income
Employment
The United States Department of Labor
has sought to address one of the main causes of homelessness, a lack of
meaningful and sustainable employment, through targeted training
programs and increased access to employment opportunities that can help
homeless people develop sustainable lifestyles. This has included the development of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness,
which addresses homelessness on the federal level in addition to
connecting homeless individuals to resources at the state level. All individuals who are in need of assistance are able, in theory, to access employment and training services under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), although this is contingent upon funding and program support by the government.
Income sources outside of regular employment
Waste management
Homeless people can also use waste management
services to earn money. Some homeless people find returnable bottles
and cans and bring them to recycling centers to earn money. They can
sort out organic trash from other trash or separate out trash made of
the same material (for example, different types of plastics, and
different types of metal). In addition, rather than picking waste at landfills, they can also collect litter found on/beside the road to earn an income.
Street newspapers
Street newspapers are newspapers or magazines sold by homeless or
poor individuals and produced mainly to support these populations. Most
such newspapers primarily provide coverage of homelessness and
poverty-related issues and seek to strengthen social networks within
homeless communities, making them a tool for allowing homeless
individuals to work.
Medicine
The 2010 passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
could provide new healthcare options for homeless people in the United
States, particularly through the optional expansion of Medicaid. A 2013
Yale study indicated that a substantial proportion of the chronically
homeless population in America would be able to obtain Medicaid coverage
if states expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
In 1985, the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program
was founded to assist the growing numbers of homeless people living on
the streets and in shelters in Boston who were suffering from a lack of
effective medical services.
In 2004, Boston Health Care for the Homeless in conjunction with the
National Health Care for the Homeless Council published a medical manual
called The Health Care of Homeless Persons, edited by James J. O'Connell, M.D., specifically for the treatment of the homeless population.
In June 2008 in Boston, the Jean Yawkey Place, a four-story,
7,214.2-square-metre (77,653 sq ft) building, was opened by the Boston
Health Care for the Homeless Program. It is an entire full-service
building on the Boston Medical Center campus dedicated to providing
healthcare for homeless people. It also contains a long-term care
facility, the Barbara McInnis
House, which expanded to 104 beds and is the first and largest medical
respite program for homeless people in the United States.
In Los Angeles, a collaboration between the Ostrow School of
Dentistry of the University of Southern California and the Union Rescue
Mission shelter offers homeless people in the Skid Row area free dental
services.
Studies on the effects of intensive mental health interventions
have demonstrated some improvements in housing stability and to be
economically beneficial on cost-analysis.
Housing
Permanent
supportive housing (PSH) interventions appear to have improvements in
housing stability for people living with homelessness even in the long
term.
Savings from housing homeless in the US
In
2013, a Central Florida Commission on Homelessness study indicated that
the region spends $31,000 a year per homeless person to cover "salaries
of law enforcement officers to arrest and transport homeless
individuals – largely for nonviolent offenses such as trespassing,
public intoxication or sleeping in parks – as well as the cost of jail
stays, emergency room visits and hospitalization for medical and
psychiatric issues. This did not include "money spent by nonprofit
agencies to feed, clothe and sometimes shelter these individuals". In
contrast, the report estimated the cost of permanent supportive housing
at "$10,051 per person per year" and concluded that "[h]ousing even half
of the region's chronically homeless population would save taxpayers
$149 million over the next decade – even
allowing for ten percent to end up back on the streets again." This
particular study followed 107 long-term-homeless residents living in
Orange, Osceola, or Seminole Counties.
Similar studies are showing large financial savings in Charlotte, North
Carolina, and Southeastern Colorado from focusing on simply housing
homeless people.
In general, housing interventions had mixed economic results in cost-analysis studies.
Innovative solutions
Los Angeles, California conducted a competition promoted by Mayor Eric Garcetti
soliciting ideas from developers to use bond money more efficiently in
building housing for the city's homeless population. The top five
winners were announced on 1 February 2019 and the concepts included
using assembly-ready molded polymer panels that can be put together with
basic tools, prefabricated 5-story stack-able houses, erecting
privately financed modular buildings on properties that do not require
City Council approval, using bond money to convert residential garages
into small apartments which are then dedicated to homeless rentals, and
the redeveloping of Bungalow-court units, the small low-income iconic
buildings that housed seven percent of the city's population in the
1920s.
In the neighborhood of Westlake, Los Angeles,
the city is funding the first transitionally homeless housing building
using "Cargotecture", or "architecture built from repurposed shipping
containers." The Hope on Alvarado micro-apartment building will consist
of four stories of 84 containers stacked together like Lego bricks on top of a traditionally constructed ground floor. Completion is anticipated by the end of 2019.
Political action
Voting for elected officials is important for the population of homeless people to have a voice in the democratic process.
There are also many community organizations and social movements
around the world which are taking action to reduce homelessness. They
have sought to counteract the causes and reduce the consequences by
starting initiatives that help homeless people transition to
self-sufficiency. Social movements and initiatives tend to follow a grassroots,
community-based model of organization – generally characterized by a
loose, informal, and decentralized structure, with an emphasis on
radical protest politics. By contrast, an interest group aims to influence government policies by relying on more of a formal organizational structure.
These groups share a common element: they are both made up of and run
by a mix of allies of the homeless population and former or current
members of the homeless population. Both grassroots groups and interest
groups aim to break stereotyped images of homeless people as being weak
and hapless, or defiant criminals and drug addicts, and to ensure that
the voice of homeless people and their representatives are heard by
policymakers.
Organizing in homeless shelters
Homeless
shelters can become grounds for community organization and the
recruitment of homeless individuals into social movements for their
cause. Cooperation between the shelter and an elected representative
from the homeless community at each shelter can serve as the backbone of
this type of initiative. The representative presents and forwards
problems raises concerns and provides new ideas to the director and
staff of the shelters. Examples of possible problems are ways to deal
with substance use disorders by certain shelter users, and the
resolution of interpersonal conflicts. SAND, the Danish National
Organization for Homeless People, is one example of an organization that
uses this empowerment approach.
Issues reported at the homeless shelters are then addressed by SAND at
the regional or national level. To open further dialogue, SAND organizes
regional discussion forums where staff and leaders from the shelters,
homeless representatives, and local authorities meet to discuss issues
and good practices at the shelters.
Veteran specific
Many homeless organizations support homeless veterans, an issue most commonly seen in the United States.
Non-governmental organizations house or redirect homeless
veterans to care facilities. Social Security Income/Social Security
Disability Income, Access, Outreach, Recovery Program (SOAR) is a
national project funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration. It is designed to increase access to SSI/SSDI
for eligible adults who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and
have a mental illness or a co-occurring substance use disorder. Using a
three-pronged approach of Strategic Planning, Training, and Technical
Assistance (TA), the SOAR TA Center coordinates this effort at the state
and community level.
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Administration have a special Section 8 housing voucher program called VASH (Veterans Administration Supported Housing), or HUD-VASH, which gives out a certain number of Section 8 subsidized housing vouchers to eligible homeless and otherwise vulnerable US armed forces veterans. The HUD-VASH program has shown success in housing many homeless veterans.
The support available to homeless veterans varies internationally,
however. For example, in England, where there is a national right to
housing, veterans are only prioritized by local authority homelessness
teams if they are found to be vulnerable due to having served in the
Armed Forces.
Under the Department of Labor, the Veterans' Employment and
Training Service (VETS) offers a variety of programs targeted at ending
homelessness among veterans.
The Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program (HVRP) is the only national
program that is exclusively focused on assisting veterans as they
reenter the workforce. The VETS program also has an Incarcerated Veterans' Transition Program, as well as services that are unique to female Veterans. Mainstream programs initiated by the Department of Labor have included the Workforce Investment Act, One-Stop Career Centers, and a Community Voice Mail system that helps to connect homeless individuals around the United States with local resources.
Targeted labor programs have included the Homeless Veterans
Reintegration Project, the Disability Program Navigator Initiative,
efforts to end chronic homelessness through providing employment and
housing projects, Job Corps, and the Veterans Workforce Investment Program (VWIP).
By location
Africa
Egypt
Homelessness in Egypt is a significant social issue affecting some 12 million
people in the country. Egypt has over 1,200 areas designated for
irregular dwellings that do not conform to standard building laws,
allowing homeless people to build shacks and other shelters for
themselves.
Reportedly, in Egypt, homelessness is defined to include those living in marginal housing.
Some scholars have stated that there is no agreed-upon definition of
homelessness in Egypt due to the difficulties government would face if
an official definition were accepted.
According to UNICEF, there are one million children living on the streets in Egypt. Other researchers estimate the number to be some three million. Homelessness NGOs assisting street children include those such as Hope Village Society, and NAFAS. Other NGOs, such as Plan International Egypt, work to reintegrate street children back into their families.
South Africa
Homelessness in South Africa dates back to the apartheid period. Increasing unemployment, lack of affordable housing, social disintegration, and social and economic policies have all been identified as contributing factors to the issue.
Some scholars argue that solutions to homelessness in South Africa lie
more within the private sphere than in the legal and political spheres.
There is no national census on homeless people in South Africa,
researchers instead rely on individual studies of homeless persons in
particular cities. The South African homeless population has been estimated at 200,000 people from a diverse range of backgrounds.
One study found that three out of four South African metropolitan
municipalities viewed homelessness primarily as a social dependency
issue, responding with social interventions. At the same time, homeless
South Africans indicated that the most important thing the municipality
could assist them with was employment and well-located affordable
housing.
A homeless person collecting recyclable materials in Stellenbosch, South Africa
Asia
China
In 2011, there were approximately 2.41 million homeless adults and 179,000 homeless children living in the country. However, one publication estimated that there were one million homeless children in China in 2012.
Housing in China is highly regulated by the Hukou system. This gives rise to a large number of migrant workers, numbering 290.77 million in 2019.
These migrant workers have rural Hukou, but they move to the cities in
order to find better jobs, though due to their rural Hukou they are
entitled to fewer privileges than those with urban Hukou. According to Huili et al.,
these migrant workers "live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions"
and are always at risk of displacement to make way for new real estate
developments. In 2017, the government responded to a deadly fire in a
crowded building in Beijing by cracking down on dense illegal shared
accommodations and evicting the residents, leaving many migrant laborers
homeless.
This comes in the context of larger attempts by the government to limit
the population increase in Beijing, often targeting migrant laborers. However, according to official government statistics,
migrant workers in China have an average of 20.4 square metres (220
square feet) of living space per capita, and the vast majority of
migrant workers have basic living facilities such as heating, bathing,
refrigerators, and washing machines.
Several natural disasters have led to homelessness in China. The 2000 Yunnan earthquake left 92,479 homeless and destroyed over 41,000 homes.
Homelessness among people with mental health problems is 'much
less common' in China than in high-income countries, due to stronger
family ties, but is increasing due to migration within families and as a
result of the one-child policy. A study in Xiangtan found at least 2439 schizophrenic people that have been homeless on a total population of 2.8 million.
It was found that "homelessness was more common in individuals from
rural communities (where social support services are limited), among
those who wander away from their communities (i.e., those not from
Xiangtan municipality), and among those with limited education (who are
less able to mobilize social supports). Homelessness was also associated
with greater age; [the cause] may be that older patients have 'burned
their bridges' with relatives and, thus, end up on the streets."
During the Cultural Revolution
a large part of child welfare homes were closed down, leaving their
inhabitants homeless. By the late 1990s, many new homes were set up to
accommodate abandoned children. In 1999, the Ministry of Civil Affairs estimated the number of abandoned children in welfare homes to be 66,000.
According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, China had approximately 2,000 shelters and 20,000 social workers to aid approximately three million homeless people in 2014.
From 2017 to 2019, the government of Guangdong
Province assisted 5,388 homeless people in reuniting with relatives
elsewhere in China. The Guangdong government assisted more than 150,000
people over three years.
In 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs announced several actions of the Central Committee in response to homelessness, including increasing support services and reuniting homeless people with their families. In Wuhan, the situation for homeless people was particularly bad, as the lockdown
made it impossible for homeless migrants to return to other parts of
the country. The Wuhan Civil Affairs Bureau set up 69 shelters in the
city to house 4,843 people.
India
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines 'homeless' as those who do not live in a regular residence due to lack of adequate housing, safety, and availability.
The United Nations Economic and Social Council Statement has a broader
definition for homelessness; it defines homelessness as follows: 'When
we are talking about housing, we are not just talking about four walls
and a roof. The right to adequate housing is about the security of
tenure, affordability, access to services, and cultural adequacy. It is
about protection from forced eviction and displacement, fighting
homelessness, poverty, and exclusion.
India defines 'homeless' as people who do not live in census houses,
but rather stay on pavements, roadsides, railway platforms, staircases,
temples, streets, in pipes, or other open spaces. There are 1.77 million
homeless people in India, or 0.15 percent of the country's total
population, according to the 2011 census consisting of single men,
women, mothers, the elderly, and the disabled.
However, it is argued that the numbers are far greater than accounted
by the point in time method. For example, while the Census of 2011
counted 46.724 homeless individuals in Delhi, the Indo-Global Social
Service Society counted them to be 88,410, and another organization
called the Delhi Development Authority counted them to be 150,000. Furthermore, there is a high proportion of mentally ill and street children in the homeless population. There are 18 million street children in India, the largest number of any country in the world, with 11 million being urban.
Finally, more than three million men and women are homeless in India's
capital city of New Delhi; the same population in Canada would make up
approximately 30 electoral districts. A family of four members has an average of five homeless generations in India.
There is a shortage of 18.78 million houses in the country. The total number of houses has increased from 52.06 million to 78.48 million (as per the 2011 census). However, the country still ranks as the 124th wealthiest country in the world as of 2003. More than 90 million people in India make less than US$1 per day, thus setting them below the global poverty threshold. The ability of the Government of India to tackle urban homelessness and poverty may be affected in the future by both external and internal factors.
The number of people living in slums in India has more than doubled in
the past two decades and now exceeds the entire population of Britain,
the Indian Government has announced. About 78 million people in India live in slums and tenements. Seventeen percent of the world's slum dwellers reside in India. After the release of the feature film Slumdog Millionaire
in 2008, Mumbai was a slum tourist destination for slumming where
homeless people and slum dwellers alike could be openly viewed by
tourists.
Indonesia
Homelessness in Indonesia refers to the issue of homelessness, a
condition wherein people lack a stable and appropriate place of housing.
The number of homeless people in Indonesia is estimated to be up to
three million people in the country, with over 28,000 in Jakarta alone. Several terms are used to describe homeless people in Indonesia, including tunawisma, which is used by the government, and gelandangan, meaning "tramp".
Squatters and street homeless people are often targeted by police
raids who say that homeless people "disturb the attractiveness of the
city".
One cause of homelessness in Indonesia is forced evictions.
According to researchers, between the years 2000 and 2005 over 92,000
people were forcefully evicted from their homes.
Israel
Homelessness in Israel is a phenomenon that mostly developed after the mid-1980s.
Homelessness increased following the wave of Soviet immigration in 1991. As many as 70 percent
of homeless people in Tel Aviv are immigrants from the former Soviet
Union, nearly all of them men. According to homeless shelter founder
Gilad Harish, "when the recession hit Israel in the early 1990s, the
principle of 'last in, first out' kicked in, and many Russian immigrants
lost their jobs. Being new to the country, they didn't have a strong
family support system to fall back on like other Israelis do. Some ended
up on the street with nowhere to go."
The number of homeless people in Israel grew in the 2000s, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel claimed that the authorities were ignoring the issue.
Some 2,000 families in Israel lose their homes every year after
defaulting on their mortgage loans. However, a law amendment passed in
2009 protects the rights of mortgage debtors and ensures that they are
not evicted after failing to meet mortgage payments. The amendment is
part of a wider reform in the law in the wake of a lengthy battle by the
Association for Civil Rights in Israel and other human rights groups.
In 2007, the number of homeless youth was on the rise. More than 25 percent of all homeless youth in 2007 were girls, compared to 15 }percent in 2004. A report
by Elem, a non-profit organization that helps youth at risk, pointed to
a five percent rise in the number of youths either homeless or
wandering the streets late at night while their parents worked or due to
strained relations at home. The organization estimated that in 2007 it
provided programs or temporary shelter to roughly 32,000 youths in some
30 locations countrywide.
In 2014, the number of homeless individuals in Israel was
estimated at 1,831, about 600 of whom were living on the streets of Tel
Aviv.
This makes up 0.02 percent of the country's population, a low figure
compared to other developed nations. In July 2015, the Welfare Ministry
estimated the number of homeless people to be between 800 and 900,
including 450 receiving services and treatment from their municipalities
but continuing to live on the streets. Elem claimed the true figure was
much higher. In December 2015, a large study by the Welfare Ministry
found that 2,300 people in Israel were homeless.
Homeless people in Israel are entitled to a monthly government stipend of NIS 1,000. In addition, there are both state-run homeless shelters operated by the Welfare Ministry and privately run shelters.
Adi Nes, an Israeli photographer, has brought public attention to the issue by taking pictures of Israel's homeless.
Japan
Homelessness in Japan (ホームレス, 浮浪者)) is a social issue
primarily affecting middle-aged and elderly males. Homelessness is
thought to have peaked in the 1990s as a consequence of the collapse of
the Japanese asset price bubble and has largely fallen since then.
According to the "Special Act in regards to Supporting the Autonomy of the Homeless Population" (Japanese: ホームレスの自立の支援等に関する特別措置法)),
the term "homeless" is defined as "those [people] who utilize city
parks, river banks, roads, train stations, and other facilities as their
place of stay to live their daily lives".
Nicknames for homeless people in Japan include hōmuresu (ホームレス, from the English "homeless"), furousha (浮浪者, meaning "wandering person"), kojiki (乞食, meaning beggar), and runpen (ルンペン, from German [[wikt:Lumpen|Lumpen]]). More recently, nojukusha (野宿者, "person who sleeps outside") and nojuku roudousha (野宿労働者, "laborer who sleeps outside") have been used to avoid negative connotations associated with the word "homeless".
Philippines
There are approximately 4.5 million homeless people in the Philippines, about three million of those are in Manila.
Europe
One-fifth of the total population of the European Union – totalling 91.4 million
people – are still at risk of poverty or social exclusion, and access
to housing remains difficult for many Europeans. According to a Eurostat
survey,
three-in-100 people say they have already had to live with relatives
temporarily while one-in-100 people say they have already lived on the
street, in an emergency or temporary accommodation or a place not
suitable for housing.
- Homelessness in Denmark (6,431)
- Homelessness in Finland (4,300)
- Homelessness in France (300,000)
- Homelessness in Germany (678,000)
- Homelessness in Greece (40,000)
- Homelessness in Hungary (30,000)
- Homelessness in Ireland (8,313)
- Homelessness in the Netherlands (39,300)
- Homelessness in Portugal (8,209)
- Homelessness in Spain (40,000)
- Homelessness in Sweden (34,000)
Switzerland
Homelessness in Switzerland is a known social issue, however, there are few estimates as to the number of Swiss people affected.
Homelessness is less visible in Switzerland than in many other Western
countries. The majority of homeless people in Geneva are Swiss or
French, with a minority from other countries.
One Swiss study found that 1.6 percent
of all patients admitted to psychiatric wards were homeless. The study
reported that social factors and psychopathology are independently
contributing to the risk of homelessness.
In 2014, Swiss authorities reportedly began allowing homeless people to sleep in fallout shelters built during the Cold War.
There are many centers for providing food for homeless people, including the Suneboge community center.
United Kingdom
Homelessness across the U.K. is a devolved matter, resulting in
different legislation, frameworks, and even definitions, from country to
country.
Number of homeless in England per 100,000 people, 1998–2014
Since the late 1990s, housing policy has been a devolved matter,
and state support for homeless people, together with legal rights in
housing, have therefore diverged to a certain degree. A national
service, called Streetlink, was established in 2012 to help members of
the public obtain near-immediate assistance for specific rough sleepers,
with the support of the Government (as housing is a devolved matter,
the service currently only extends to England).
The annual number of homeless households in England peaked in 2003–04 at 135,420 before falling to a low of 40,020 in 2009–10. In 2017–18, there were 56,600 homeless households, which was 60 percent below the 2003–04 peak, and 40 percent higher than the 2009–10 low. The UK has more than 120,000 children in temporary accommodation, a number which has increased from 69,050 children in 2010.
In 2007 the official figures for England were that an average of 498 people slept rough each night, with 248 of those in London.
Homelessness in England since 2010 has been rising. By 2016 it is
estimated the number sleeping rough had more than doubled since 2010.
The National Audit Office said about homelessness in England 2010–17
there has been a 60 percent rise in households living in temporary
accommodation and a rise of 134 percent in rough sleepers. It is estimated 4,751 people bedded down outside overnight in England in 2017, up 15 percent over the previous year. The housing charity Shelter used data from four sets of official 2016 statistics and calculated 254,514 people in England were homeless.
The Homelessness Reduction Bill 2016–17
places a new duty on local authorities in England to assist people
threatened with homelessness within 56 days and to assess, prevent and
relieve homelessness for all eligible applicants including single
homeless people from April 2018.
Before the 2017 HRA, homeless households were defined and measured as
those who were owed a 'main homelessness duty' by local authorities. But
since 2018, the definition of homeless households has broadened as
households are owed a new relief duty and a prevention duty. The main
homelessness duty definition has not been changed by the 2017 HRA.
However, these households are now only owed a main duty if their
homelessness has not been successfully prevented or relieved.
In 2019–20, 288,470 households were owed the new prevention or relief
duties, which is four times the number of households owed the 'main
duty' in 2017–18 before implementation of the Homelessness Reduction
Act.
Research into Women's Homelessness in London has found that the
situations people face may vary based on their background and/or
experience. This is known as multiple disadvantage. The 'Making Women Count' Report,
released in March 2023 found over 154 women sleeping rough in just one
week. This project was made in collaboration with SHP, St Mungo's, the
Women's Development Unit (Solace Women’s Aid and The Connection at St
Martin’sLondon Councils and the GLA alongside researchers from
PraxisCollab.
The picture in Scotland is considerably different, with laws that
entitle everyone to a roof over their head if they are homeless.
This accommodation is often in the form of somewhere temporary until
something permanent becomes available. Though across the course of 2022,
this will change, reducing the use of temporary accommodation, in line
with the Homeless and Rough Sleeping Action Group (HARSAG)
recommendations.
Currently people are spending an average of 199 days (April 2020 to
March 2021) in temporary accommodation before being housed in somewhere
permanent.
Most recently updated in October 2020, Scotland is working to
eradicate homelessness through the 'Ending Homelessness Together' action
plan.
It is anticipated that with this, alongside a focus on prevention, and
Local Authorities working with the third sector on plans known as Rapid
Rehousing Transition Plans, that people will no longer be homeless for
any length of time.
In terms of figures, in 2020–21, there were 42,149 people in
homeless households – 30,345 adults and 11,804 children in Scotland.
This was a drop of nine percent from the previous year, though it is
unclear if this was partly due to statistics being collected differently
during the start of the pandemic.
North America
Canada
Homelessness in Canada was not a social problem until the 1980s.
Canadian government housing policies and programs in place throughout
the 1970s were based on a concept of shelter as a basic need or
requirement for survival and of the obligation of government and society
to provide adequate housing for everyone.
Public policies shifted away from rehousing in the 1980s in wealthy
Western countries like Canada, which led to a de-housing of households
that had previously been housed. By 1987, when the United Nations
established the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless
(IYSH), homelessness had become a serious social problem in Canada. The
report of the major 1987 IYSH conference held in Ottawa said that
housing was not a high priority for government, and this was a
significant contributor to the homelessness problem. While there was a
demand for adequate and affordable housing for low income Canadian
families, government funding was not available. In the 1980s a "wider
segment of the population" began to experience homelessness for the
first time – evident through their use of emergency shelters and soup
kitchens. Shelters began to experience overcrowding, and demand for
services for the homeless was constantly increasing. A series of cuts
were made to national housing programs by the federal government through
the mid-1980s and in the 1990s. While Canada's economy was robust, the
cuts continued and in some cases accelerated in the 1990s, including
cuts to the 1973 national affordable housing program. The government
solution for homelessness was to create more homeless shelters and to
increase emergency services. In the larger metropolitan areas like Toronto the use of homeless shelters increased by 75% from 1988 to 1998. Urban centres such as Montreal, Laval, Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary all experienced increasing homelessness.
In Action Plan 2011, the Federal Government of Canada proposed $120
million annually from April 2014 until April 2019—with $70 million in
new funding—to renew its Homelessness Partnering Strategy (HPS) with a
focus on the
Housing First model. Private or public organizations across Canada were eligible for HPS subsidies to implement Housing First programs.
United States
A woman giving a homeless man food in New York City, United States (2008)
After Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the presidency from Herbert Hoover in 1933, he oversaw the passage of the New Deal,
which greatly expanded social welfare, including providing funds to
build public housing. This marked the end of the Great Depression. However, the number of homeless people grew in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan
decimated the public housing budget in the 1980s, including the
federally funded affordable housing production put in place by the New Deal.
By the mid-1980s, there was a dramatic increase in family homelessness.
Tied into this was an increasing number of impoverished and runaway
children, teenagers, and young adults, which created a new substratum of
the homeless population (street children or street youth).
In 2015, the United States reported that there were 564,708
homeless people within its borders, one of the higher reported figures
worldwide.
Housing First
is an initiative to help homeless people reintegrate into society, and
out of homeless shelters. It was initiated by the federal government's Interagency Council on Homelessness.
It asks cities to come up with a plan to end chronic homelessness. In
this direction, there is the belief that if homeless people are given
independent housing to start, with some proper social support, then
there would be no need for emergency homeless shelters, which it
considers a good outcome. However, this is a controversial position.
There is evidence that the Housing First program works more
efficiently than Treatment First programs. Studies show that having the
stability of housing through the Housing First program will encourage
homeless people to focus on other struggles they are facing, such as
substance abuse. Meanwhile, Treatment First programs promote an "all or
nothing" approach which requires clients to participate in programs
applicable to their struggles as a condition for housing assistance.
Treatment First utilizes a less individualistic approach than Housing
First and solutions are created under one standard rather than fit each
client's specific needs.
Skid Row, Los Angeles contains one of the largest stable populations, between 5,000 and 8,000, of homeless people in the United States.
In 2009 it was estimated that one out of 50 children or 1.5 million children in the United States would experience some form of homelessness each year.
In 2010 in New York City, where there were over 36,000 homeless people in 2009,
there was a mobile video exhibit in the streets showing a homeless
person on a screen and asking onlookers and passersby to text with their
cellphones a message for him, and they also could donate money by
cellphones to the organization Pathways to Housing.
In September 2010, it was reported that the Housing First Initiative
had significantly reduced the chronic homeless single person population
in Boston, Massachusetts, although homeless families were still
increasing in number. Some shelters were reducing the number of beds due
to lowered numbers of homeless, and some emergency shelter facilities
were closing, especially the emergency Boston Night Center.
In 2011, the Department of Veterans Affairs Supportive Services for
Veterans Families Initiative, SSVF, began funding private non-profit
organizations and consumer cooperatives to provide supportive services
to very low-income veteran families living in or transitioning to
permanent housing.
In 2019, in an interview with CBS News, scholar Sara Goldrick-Rab
said that her study on college student homelessness found that
"[n]early one in ten college students said they were homeless in the
last year, meaning they had at least one night where they did not know
where they were going to sleep."
Puerto Rico
According
to the count by the Puerto Rico Department of Family, in January 2017
there were 3,501 homeless persons in the territory. The study shows that
26 percent of this population lives in the capital, San Juan.
Other municipality's percentage of this population was Ponce at 6.3
percent, Arecibo at six percent, Caguas at 5.3 percent, and Mayagüez at
4.7 percent. Results from the study determined that 76 percent of the
homeless population were men and 24 percent were women and that both men
and women populations, were on average age, 40 years old. This steadily
increasing population might have increased more drastically as a result
of Hurricane María which caused over 90 billion dollars in damage to the island of Puerto Rico.
Data provided by the Department of Community Social Development
of San Juan indicates that in 1988 the number of homeless people in the
municipality was 368, while in 2017 there were about 877 persons without
a home. While the average age for the overall homeless population is 40
years old for both women and men, in San Juan the median
is 48 years for men and 43 years for women. Other data obtained showed
that more than 50 percent have university-level education. Also, it
revealed that 35 percent of men and 25 percent of women have relapsed
more than four times after unsuccessful attempts to reinsert themselves
socially. Reasons given for wandering are varied with the most common
causes being drug abuse (30.6%), family problems (22.4%), financial or
economic problems (15.0%), and others such as unemployment, mental
health problems, domestic violence, evictions, or lack of support when
released from prison.
Oceania
Australia
A homeless person's shelter under a fallen willow tree in Australia
In Australia, the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program
(SAAP) is a joint Commonwealth and state government program which
provides funding for more than 1,200 organizations that are aimed to
assist homeless people or those in danger of becoming homeless, as well
as women and children escaping domestic violence.
They provide accommodation such as refuges, shelters, and half-way
houses, and offer a range of supported services. The Commonwealth has
assigned over $800 million between 2000 and
2005 for the continuation of SAAP. The current program, governed by the
Supported Assistance Act 1994, specifies that "the overall aim of SAAP
is to provide transitional supported accommodation and related support
services, to help people who are homeless to achieve the maximum
possible degree of self-reliance and independence. This legislation has
been established to help the homeless people of the nation and help
rebuild the lives of those in need. The cooperation of the states also
helps enhance the meaning of the legislation and demonstrates their
desire to improve the nation as best they can." In 2011, the Specialist
Homelessness Services (SHS) program replaced the SAAP program.
New Zealand
Homelessness in New Zealand has been linked to the general issue of lack of suitable housing. The population of homeless people is generally measured through the country's census
and by universities and other academic centres. In 2009, urban
homelessness (rough sleepers or improvised dwellings) were estimated at
less than 300, while rural homelessness (improvised dwellings) was
estimated at between 500 and 1000. An additional 8,000–20,000 people
live in "temporary accommodation unsuited for long-term habitation
(caravans, campgrounds, substandard housing, and boarding houses)." Homelessness in New Zealand has traditionally been reduced by the provision of state housing, similar to Germany and other developed countries.
Statistical authorities in New Zealand have expanded their
definition of homelessness to include 'people living in improvised
shelters', 'people staying in camping grounds/motor camps', and 'people
sharing accommodation with someone else's household'.
The issue is believed to have become increasingly visible in recent years.
Media in New Zealand have published an accusatory account of the
presence of homeless people in public spaces, positioning homeless men
as disruptive threats. Though community members have shown support by
writing opinion pieces.
In late January 2019, The New York Times
reported rising housing prices to be a major factor in the increasing
homelessness in New Zealand so that "smaller markets like Tauranga, a coastal city on the North Island
with a population of 128,000, had seen an influx of people who had left
Auckland in search of more affordable housing. Average property values
in Tauranga had risen to $497,000 from $304,000 in the last five years,
and Demographia now rated it among the 10 least affordable cities in the
world – along with famously expensive locales such as Hong Kong, San
Francisco, Sydney and Vancouver, British Columbia."
In mid-August 2019, the Associate Housing Minister Kris Faafoi and Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced that the Government would be launching a NZ$54 million program to tackle homelessness in New Zealand. This includes investing $31 million over the next four years for 67 intensive case managers and navigators to work with homeless people and a further $16 million for the Sustaining Tenancies Programme. This funding complements the Government's Housing First programme.
Russia and the USSR
After the abolition of serfdom in Russia
in 1861, major cities experienced a large influx of former peasants who
sought jobs as industrial workers in rapidly developing Russian
industry. These people often lived in harsh conditions, sometimes
renting a room shared between several families. There also was a large
number of shelterless homeless people. Immediately after the October Revolution a special program of "compression" (уплотнение)
was enabled: people who had no shelter were settled in flats of those
who had large (4, 5, or 6-room) flats with only one room left to
previous owners. The flat was declared state property. This led to a
large number of shared flats
where several families lived simultaneously. Nevertheless, the problem
of complete homelessness was mostly solved as anybody could apply for a
room or a place in a dormitory (the number of shared flats steadily
decreased after the large-scale residential building program was
implemented starting in the 1960s).
Homeless people sleeping outside in Yekaterinburg
By 1922 there were at least seven million homeless children in Russia as a result of nearly a decade of devastation from World War I and the Russian Civil War.
This led to the creation of a large number of orphanages. By the 1930s
the USSR declared the abolition of homelessness and any citizen was
obliged to have a propiska – a
place of permanent residency. Nobody could be stripped of propiska
without substitution or refuse it without a confirmed permission (called
"order") to register in another place. If someone wanted to move to
another city or expand their living area, he had to find a partner who
wanted to mutually exchange the flats. The right to shelter was secured
in the Soviet constitution. Not having permanent residency was
considered a crime.
After the breakup of the USSR, the problem of homelessness
sharpened dramatically, partially because of the legal vacuum of the
early 1990s with some laws contradicting each other, and partially
because of a high rate of fraud in the realty market. In 1991 articles
198 and 209 of the Russian criminal code which instituted a criminal
penalty for not having permanent residence were abolished. In Moscow,
the first overnight shelter for homeless people was opened in 1992.
In the late 1990s, certain amendments in law were implemented to reduce
the rise in homelessness, such as the prohibition of selling last flats
with registered children. In 2002, there were 300,000 homeless people
in Moscow.
Nevertheless, the state is still obliged to give permanent
shelter for free to anybody who needs better living conditions or has no
permanent registration, because the right to shelter is still included
in the constitution. Several projects of special cheap 'social' flats
for those who failed to repay mortgages were proposed to facilitate the
mortgage market.
In 2022, it was reported that Russian authorities were targeting homeless people to conscript them into the war in Ukraine.
Popular culture
A street bench in Kitsilano, British Columbia, Canada, with a snowman depicting a homeless person
Homelessness in popular culture is depicted in various works.
Films
- Modern Times, a 1936 film, shows the negative effects of vagrancy laws.
- Cathy Come Home, 1966, shows the effects of homelessness on parenthood.
- God Bless the Child, 1988, a made-for-TV movie about a single mother (Mare Winningham) living on the streets of New York City with her young daughter.
- Homeless Sam & Sally,
a 2020 dark comedy film and television series with the same name
released in 2019, is about a story regarding a mother named Sally Silver
and her mentally ill son Sam Silver who comes up with ways to live
normal lives while being homeless in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
- Dark Days, 2000, 81 minutes, a documentary by Marc Singer, who followed the lives of people living in the Freedom Tunnel, an Amtrak tunnel in New York City.
- Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story, a 2003 film about a homeless girl, Liz Murray, who works her way up to admission to Harvard University.
- 66 Months,
a 2011 British documentary film about a homeless man who makes it on
his own for six years without any government programs helping him.
- The Pursuit of Happyness,
a 2006 biographical film where a father and son struggle to get a job
and end up homeless after an eviction and later a tax garnishment. After
several weeks living from place to place in 1981 San Francisco, he
lands a permanent position in a brokerage firm after completing an
unpaid internship.
- Same Kind of Different as Me,
a 2017 American film about a successful art dealer, his wife, and an
initially violent member of a homeless shelter community. It is based on
the 2006 book of the same name.
- Curly Sue,
a 1991 comedy-drama film that focuses on a homeless con artist and his
friend who gets lucky with a roof over their heads by tricking a wealthy
attorney.
- Life Stinks,
a 1991 comedy film about a wealthy businessman who bets a corporate
rival that he can live his life as a homeless man but finds out later on
in the story that being homeless isn't easy or fun.
- The Saint of Fort Washington,
a 1993 drama film where a homeless disabled man gets guidance from a
friendly veteran as they cope with the realities of being on the
streets.