1

What are the underlying causes of homelessness?

Isaiah Gilbert

Sport and Medical Sciences Academy

Senior Seminar

Mar 1, 2022
2

What are the underlying causes of homelessness? There are many reasons that a person

may find themselves without consistent housing. This happens all over the world and is a bigger

problem than you could possibly imagine. Lastly recorded in January of 2020, there were

580,466 people experiencing homelessness in America (HUD releases 2020 Annual Homeless

Assessment Report part 1 2021). There's a large demographic of homeless people, many of

which include veterans. Homelessness affects all kinds of people and it is important to

understand the causes of homelessness.

Many different types of homeless people are of all races, ages and upbringings. Males

have a bigger percentage of homelessness than females, the exact percentage is 63% male and

37% female (Center, N. L. (n.d.). Homelessness in america: Overview of data and causes.

Retrieved March 10, 2022). Homeless children almost make up a quarter of the percentage of the

homeless population, at 22.6% (Center, N. L. (n.d.). Homelessness in america: Overview of data

and causes. Retrieved March 10, 2022). This statistic shows that homelessness is an issue that

you can be born into and homeless children are not given opportunities that a lot of people are

born into. Also, disabled people make up 38.6% of homeless people, which is over a 3rd of the

homeless population. A third of the population is crazy to me and if you are disabled and/or

know a disabled person you know how hard it is for them to do everyday things so the fact that

disabled people are part of homelessness is absurd. White, non-hispanic people make up 38.9%of

the homeless population while white hispanics make up 9.5%. Black people/ african american

people make up 39.4% of the homeless population (Center, N. L. (n.d.). Homelessness in

america: Overview of data and causes. Retrieved March 10, 2022) as heartbreaking as all these

statistics are only one stuck out to me and that is the percentage of homelessness in children. You
3

have one chance at life and you are brought into homelessness and it's sad because you didn't ask

for that.

There are a lot of homeless people in this world but something surprising is how many

homeless veterans there are. In the year 2020 23% of the homeless population were veterans

which is just about a quarter of that number, 92% of them are male (Affairs, V. (n.d.). Veterans

Health Administration (VHA ... - va.gov home. Retrieved March 10, 2022 ) The fact that

these people fight for our country and yet we allow these people to sleep on streets and watch

them wither away as time goes by and it hurts my heart. Since 2010, more than 850,000

Veterans and their family members have been permanently housed, or prevented from falling

into homelessness through HUD’s targeted housing vouchers and VA’s homelessness programs

(Affairs, V. (n.d.). Veterans Health Administration (VHA ... - va.gov home. Retrieved March 10,

2022) It brings me joy that there are programs out there that are helping these people get off

the streets and putting food in their stomachs like they deserved from the end of their term.

In conclusion the homeless population is more than it should be. If more people were

aware of this problem and how severe it is, the homeless population could drop drastically.

People can donate clothes, food, etc. for the homeless people. If people helped the homeless

community more and treated them like they are real people then the homeless population

wouldn't be as big of a deal then it is now. That is why I'm doing my part for these people by

going to South Church and making pb&j sandwiches and working with Journey Home to help

homeless people move into their first apartment.

4

References

Center, N. L. (n.d.). Homelessness in america: Overview of data and causes. Homelessness

in America. Retrieved March 8, 2022, from

https://homelesslaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Homeless_Stats_Fact_Sheet.pdf

Paquette, K. (n.d.). Current statistics on the prevalence and characteristics ... Retrieved

March 9, 2022, from

https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/programs_campaigns/homelessness_programs_r

esources/hrc-factsheet-current-statistics-prevalence-characteristics-homelessness.pdf

fargo, jamison. (n.d.). Prevalence final - va.gov home | veterans affairs. Retrieved March 9,

2022, from https://www.va.gov/HOMELESS/docs/Center/Prevalence_Final.pdf