Alexander Tsesis | Balkinization
The homeless population has increased during this extended economic recession, but the concern for their plight remains inadequate given their level of destitution. Currently there are few vocational training programs designed to help the homeless get off and stay off the streets. What’s more, no federal grants directly fund adult job and skills training programs.
Foreclosures and increased unemployment have exacerbated an already grave problem. In the United States, on any given night roughly 3 million people are homeless; although, their exact number is difficult to get at because it varies daily. Throughout the country the demand for homeless services has increased during the recession. In the Richmond, Virginia area, the number of homeless has increased by 7.2 percent in the past year, and emergency shelters are encountering a 26 percent increase there. The homeless population in Dane County, Wisconsin increased by about 17 percent in 2007. The Supervisor for Marin County, California reports that the need for homeless services has grown by 26 percent in 2008. The Palm Beach County Florida homeless population over the last year rose by about 20 percent. A one night homeless study in South King County, Washington, conducted on January 30, 2009, showed a dramatic increase of 68 percent from the year before.
Among the people living in homelessness, 67.5% are single male and about 8.5% single female. Among those homeless people who are members of a household with children 65% are female and 35% male. Ethnically, 42% of the homeless are about black, 39% white, 13% Latino, 4% Native American, and 2% Asian. Roughly a quarter of the women who are homeless escaped from domestic violence.
These human tragedies continue to receive inadequate federal agency attention. Talk about helping the homeless usually centers on sheltering the population. That indeed is the immediate need, but it does not adequately get at the underlying problem. Many discussions of homelessness, including those on the Department of Health and Human Services’s website, ignore how providing educational experiences for the homeless can positively affect their lives. The Department of Health and Human Services grant assistance programs emphasize the need for mental illness and addiction services.
This focus overlooks the critical need of education and training for the population. Moreover, it perpetuates the image of the homeless as being primarily a population with psychological disorders or drug problems. Mental illness and addiction disproportionately impacts that population, but there is a much larger segment of those who are chronically homeless because of the inadequacy of the minimum wage, high housing costs, family conflicts, and the inadequacy or lack of support networks.
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