The panhandlers of Centre Street

Your demonizing those who frequent Whole Foods or live in an apartment than cost a certain amount is singularly divisive and overall unhelpful to building understanding of the causes of homelessness. While there are certainly credible arguments that can be made about the relative contribution of US economic and governmental policies to the rise of homelessness, the right blaming the homeless for there own situations or left blaming the more well-to-do simply ignores the central issues of contemporary homelessness in America.

The reality is that mental illness among individuals is probably the single greatest contributor to the rise in the number of homeless people in America. Clearly, the structural problems created by de-institutionalization and similar policies throughout the 1980s are at the root of this assessment. The mental health policies of limiting involuntary commitment and allowing state hospitals to discharge patients with nowhere to go were a complete disaster.

Clinicians who examine the homeless today often conclude that about a third have 'severe' mental disorders. People with these disorders usually are incapable of finding work and generally dealing with the myriad of complex life issues that are thrown at them. As a result, while structural forces (e.g. lack of adequate social services, affordable rental units, job training, etc,) may have throw mental patients into the streets, their mental illness certainly contributed to the rise of homelessness by keeping them permanently bound there.

It does not go unnoticed that conservative commentators like to cite a "culture of poverty" among certain segments of the lower class American population as a central reason for the growth of homelessness. This thinking has come to represent the idea that poor people are inherently apathetic, alienated, lazy, unambitious, and especially, disorganized and fatalistic due to the circumstances in which they live. Even after being disproven repeatedly, politicians like Trump and Ryan continue to pursue an agenda that implies that the homeless themselves are primarily responsible for their contemporary predicament.

To understand homelessness and poverty, one must first appreciate the presence of an unstable economy as one of the key factors in determining whether or not a poor person is at risk of becoming homeless. In a landscape where insufficient incomes and unaffordable housing prevail, individuals become homeless when an unexpected financial setback, illness or personal crisis occurs. Once homeless, people are faced with a new and overwhelming set of obstacles.

Moreover, there are a wide array of different sub-groups within the homeless population in general. These include the mentally ill, alcohol or drug addicted, female heads of single households, children, runaway youth, veterans, elderly, families, and some of the working poor. As a result, the degree to which structural or individual factors play the decisive role in determining a person's homelessness varies greatly depending upon the particular case in question.

Instead we should be asking: what should be the goal of public policies be at dealing with homelessness America, and what are the most effective methods of achieving that goal?

While ultimately there is no "right" answer to these questions given the diverse causes and needs of the homeless population, any significant progress in resolving them depends upon a collective response on the part of all American citizens. Only in this way will it be possible to truly provide the type of social activism and national "continuum of care" that is necessary to combat the continuing problem of homelessness.

You might want to read the article. None of the 13 interviewed are homeless.

I found it interesting and informative. I was surprised how much education most had gotten -- all but one made it through high school and some had gone to college.

.... hope. Cigarettes, despair.