Overview of Homelessness In America

As today’s students face a world filled with global conflict, disappearing jobs, skyrocketing education costs, and increasing poverty in America, action is more crucial than ever. We know hunger and homelessness are increasing epidemics plaguing the United States – striking Americans of every age, ethnicity, and religion, hitting urban and rural communities alike.

Just last year, the national poverty rate rose to include 13.2% of the population. 1 in 7 people were at risk of suffering from hunger in the United States. In addition, 3.5 million people were forced to sleep in parks, under bridges, in shelter or cars.

The combination of the high cost of living, low-wage jobs, and high unemployment rates only exacerbate these problems and force countless Americans to choose between food, housing, and other expenses. Studies show that money devoted to food is typically the first to be sacrificed. Families will often pay their fixed payments first, such as rent and utilities, rather than pay for food.

Unfortunately, these problems will only continue to grow if our society does not make it a national priority to address them in any systemic way.

Who is Homeless and Why?
The homeless population includes people from all walks of life:
•In the U.S., more than 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year.
•35% of the homeless population are families with children, which is the fastest growing segment of the homeless population.
•23% are U.S. military veterans.
•25% are children under the age of 18 years.
•30% have experienced domestic violence.
•20-25% suffer from mental illness.
•In urban communities, people experience homelessness for an average of eight months.

People become homeless for a variety of reasons. Homelessness is primarily an economic problem, and is also affected by a number of social and political factors. The number of people experiencing homelessness exploded in the 1980s, as federal funds were withdrawn from low-income housing and social assistance programs for low-income families and the mentally ill. Current federal spending on housing assistance programs targeted at low-income populations is less than 50% of 1976 spending levels.

Economic Factors
Lack of Affordable Housing: There is a severe lack of affordable housing in the United States. The growing gap between wage earnings and the cost of housing in the United States leaves millions of families and individuals unable to make ends meet. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, families across the country would need to earn a “housing wage” of $15.37 an hour, nearly three times the current minimum wage, to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the average fair market rent. Even in West Virginia, the least expensive rental state in the country, a full-time wage earner would have to earn over $8.78/hour-$3 higher than the federal minimum wage-in order to afford a two bedroom apartment.

Low Incomes: Many low and minimum wage workers cannot afford food and shelter. Over the past twenty-five years, wages for the lowest income workers have not kept pace with the increase in living costs, nor the increase in salaries of those in the highest income brackets. The minimum wage has continually decreased in value since the late 1960s; adjusting for inflation, the current minimum wage is worth 27% less than it was in 1968. This leaves the lowest income workers unable to afford necessities like housing, food and medical care.

Lack of Affordable Medical Care: The cost of health care and insurance has risen dramatically over past years and can cost a family up to $8000/year. For families living on low or middle incomes, this cost can be prohibitive. For families or individuals that lack health insurance, a sudden illness, chronic disease, or accident can be financially devastating.

Political Factors
Cuts in federal assistance for housing programs and social services have coincided with the rise in homelessness in the U.S. During the 1950s and 1960s, federal housing programs and services nearly eradicated homelessness; however, during the 1980s, housing programs were slashed by half and the homeless population in the U.S. began to grow.

Programs designed to provide a safety net for people living at or near the poverty line, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), have faced changes or cuts that often make it more difficult or impossible for people at risk of or experiencing homelessness to access services. TANF components like sanctions, work requirements, time limits, and immigrant restrictions cut many people off from benefits. Without a safety net to help, many of the lowest income people must choose between things like food, medical care, and housing to make ends meet.

Social & Medical Factors
While economic factors are the main causes of homelessness, long-term issues like mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism can exacerbate situations of poverty and put people at greater risk of homelessness. Surveys of people experiencing homelessness show that about 25% of the homeless population suffers from some form of mental illness; the high cost of health insurance leaves homeless people without access to proper care to treat mental illness. Drug and alcohol addiction affect about 20% of the homeless population who, again, often lack access to proper, affordable care for these illnesses.

Solutions
We can end homelessness in the U.S. by tackling its root causes-low wages and a lack of affordable housing-and by improving support services like TANF, housing vouchers, and health care.

For more information on homelessness in the U.S., see the following:
National Coalition for the Homeless
National Alliance to End Homelessness
U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

Presenting The Working Poor Of America

[1]

Submitted by Tyler Durden [1] on  01/15/2013 18:28 -0400

• BLS [2]
• Bureau of Labor Statistics [3]
• Reuters [4]
• Unemployment [5]

Much has been made of the slow but steady ‘improvement’ in the unemployment data we are treated to on a weekly and monthly basis from the hallowed eves of the BLS. Just as much has been written on the ugly under-belly of this apparent improvement with the work-force becoming dominated by older workers [6] forced to stay in jobs for longer and an increasing downshift in the kind of jobs available and taken. To wit, Reuters cites [7] a report from the The Working Poor Families Project [8] that highlights the surprising levels of poverty so many Americans find themselves in. The number of low-income ‘working’ families has increased three straight years – and now stands at over 10.2million, with more than 46 million people living in low-income families. “Although many people are returning to work, they are often taking jobs with lower wages and less job security, compared with the middle-class jobs they held before the economic downturn,” which means that nearly one in three working families in the United States is struggling to meet basic needs. Although they are often overlooked, the number of low-income working families has been increasing steadily, resulting in a shrinking middle class and challenging a fundamental assumption that in America, work pays – as we have pointed out before (at these levels, it simply doesn’t thanks to the benefit availability) [9].

 

[10]

Fighting poverty with education; hope for breaking the cycle of multi-generational poverty
By Celia Baker , Deseret News
Published: Monday, Oct. 22 2012 9:47 a.m. MDT
First Lady Jeanette Herbert, chair of the Governor’s Commission on Literacy, helped launch Utah’s participation in jumpstarting 2012 ‘Read for the Record’ by reading Ladybug and the Bug Squad with students at Jackson Elementary in Salt Lake City. (, )
SALT LAKE CITY — Education is the brightest hope for breaking the cycle of multi-generational poverty. But, kids born to poor, under-educated parents aren’t likely to succeed at school without help that targets their family situations, and that help is most needed during their earliest years.

Those are among conclusions of “Child Poverty and Its Lasting Consequence,” a study by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Urban Institute.

A harrowing portrait of the United States’ growing underclass emerges from the longitudinal study, which analyzed poverty rates for more than 13,000 newborns born between 1967 and 2008.

Poverty’s long reach

The Urban Institute’s social policy researchers found that one in six U.S. newborns was born poor, and nearly half of those babies went on to spend at least half of their childhood in poverty. More than one-third of poor children were born into “deep poverty” — to parents living on incomes less than 50 percent of the federal poverty level. In 2012 this amounts to an annual income of $9,545 for a family of three.

Parents’ low educational attainment was shown to predict persistent poverty for their children more consistently than any other factor the study investigated — including single motherhood, family unemployment, young age of parents or living in inner-city neighborhoods.

Earning a high school diploma can help break the cycle of multi-generational poverty, but persistent poverty makes earning that diploma a tough challenge, the study said. Children who spend more than half of their childhoods poor are nearly 90 percent more likely than never-poor children to enter their 20s without completing high school.

“What we really see is that children often follow in their parent’s footsteps in regard to educational attainment,” said Caroline Ratcliffe, an economist who co-authored the study. “Children whose parents don’t graduate from high school are likely to drop out, too. Those without a high school degree by age 20 are more likely to have patchy employment in young adulthood, and be poor as an adult. You can see the cycle.”

Newborns and minorities hard-hit

Poverty strikes its most innocent victims hardest of all, the report found. Stresses associated with poverty — including malnutrition, lack of mental stimulation, poor health care, frequent moving and general insecurity — have their direst effect on newborns and children up to age two. Children who live in poverty in those first years of life are about 30 percent less likely to complete high school than children who became poor later in childhood, according to the “Child Poverty and Its Lasting Consequence” report.

“I think what this report is saying is that early interventions are very important,” Ratcliffe said, “Targeting resources to these kids from birth is vital, because home environment in early years is so important to brain development.”

A National Science Academy study corroborated poverty’s effects on young brains, showing that the stresses of childhood poverty reduce working memory in young adults. Low income and low academic achievement are already advancing in lockstep by the time children enter kindergarten, and the longer children must endure economic hardship, the lower their achievement levels sink, it said.

Deepest poverty strikes minority children at higher rates than white children. Forty-six percent of poor black newborns live in deep poverty, while only 30 percent of poor white newborns do. Longitudinal data on Latino children wasn’t kept before the 1990s, so long-term comparisons weren’t made. However, among children born in the 1990s, 39 percent of Hispanic newborns were born poor, compared to 44 percent of black children and 10 percent of white newborns.

Though childhood poverty rates have fluctuated over the years, they are currently on the rise. Newborns in the 1980s and ’90s had higher poverty rates than those in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Ratcliffe’s research showed. Poverty rates declined in the first years of the 21st century, but increased again after the start of 2008 recession, rising to the highest level in nearly two decades during 2010 and ’11.

Breaking the cycle

Helping children at school isn’t likely to solve the problem of persistent poverty if parents don’t get help, Ratcliffe said. She suggests home nursing visits to help with breastfeeding and get babies off to a good start; help for maternal depression, which is rampant among poor mothers; and working to improve family function and home environments. Increasing public spending in these areas in these areas would pay for itself in the long run, Ratcliffe said.

Solving inter-generational poverty requires a multi-pronged approach, said licensed social worker Ben Reuler. Helping kids succeed at school takes a lot of work outside of school, Reuler said, and there is no single solution.

“Poverty is never just about housing, or mental health or having a job, or child care,” said Reuler, who works to break the poverty cycle as executive director of LIFT-Chicago.

LIFT-Chicago is a non-profit group that works to lift motivated people out of poverty. Many of the poor people Reuler works with are hard workers who want to solve their situation, he said. Still, they need mentoring to bootstrap themselves through the maze of red tape that goes along with improving their own educational levels, job status and housing so their children can succeed.

Reuler said that though many programs exist to help the poor, the system is highly fragmented, and difficult to navigate. Even as a licensed social worker whose first language is English, he finds it challenging to patch together federal, state and local grants and assistance programs to help LIFT-Chicago’s clients.

Some of the governmental supports that could help families climb out of poverty have weakened, though. America’s social safety net — including Social Security, unemployment insurance, earned income tax credits and nutritional assistance programs — has been unraveling over several decades, as noted in “The State of Working America,” a report by the Economic Policy Institute.

“Policy decisions made over the last several decades have caused this explosive rise in inequality,” the report said. “These decisions include: lowering individual and corporate tax rates; deregulating industries; failing to maintain the value of the minimum wage; failing to protect the right of workers to obtain collective bargaining; and failing to prevent asset bubbles.”

When hard times hit, they hit the poor hardest, because workers at the bottom of the economic scale scrape by from paycheck to paycheck. In a faltering economy, those on the economic ladder’s lowest rung are more vulnerable to financial devastation if a job is lost.

That’s one reason Ratcliffe recommends programs that give poor families a dollar-for-dollar match for saving — a suggestion many find counter-intuitive, she said. Families need their own emergency funds to deal with unexpected crises, Ratcliffe said. And, children learn good lessons when families, even very poor ones, have savings accounts.

“Research shows that kids who have a savings account in their name, particularly a savings account for college, are more likely to go to college,” she said.

Paying now or later

Focusing public resources on poverty is an expensive prospect, but failing to do so could be more expensive, Ratcliffe said.

“We have generations of children, and not an insubstantial number, who are born poor,” she said. “If we don’t target resources today, there will be costs and repercussions down the road in our health care and criminal justice systems. We shouldn’t be spending that money after the fact. Those resources will be much better spent up front.”

A study from the Center for American Progress, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, came to similar conclusions. The study estimates the cost of childhood poverty in United States at about $500 billion per year, because of reductions to productivity and economic output, and costs for health care spending and dealing with crime.

“The high cost of childhood poverty to the U.S. suggests that investing significant resources in poverty reduction might be more cost-effective over time than we previously thought,” the report said. “Of course, determining the effectiveness of various policies requires careful evaluation research in a variety of areas.”

Conclusions from the Center for American Progress study were that poor children could be helped by pre-kindergarten programs; expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and other supports for the working poor; low-income neighborhood revitalization; and promotion of marriage and other faith-based initiatives.

“When parents are stable, kids are stable,” Reuler said.

Copyright 2013, Deseret News Publishing Company

College Students Are Going Homeless and Hungry — And Corporate America Is Trying to Exploit Them

A look at the growing numbers of homeless and hungry college students trying desperately to make ends meet–and those who are willing to exploit them.

August 27, 2012 |

As the mainstream press frets that the much-touted “economic-recovery” appears to have lost steam, the economic crisis continues to escalate for ordinary people.

With official unemployment holding steady at 9.5 percent (real unemployment is much higher), and with the state budget cuts producing yet more tuition increases, a growing phenomenon is sweeping the nation: homeless and hungry college students.

National Public Radio (NPR) reported in late July: “For many college students and their families, rising tuition costs and a tough economy are presenting new challenges as college bills come in. This has led to a little-known but growing population of financially stressed students, who are facing hunger and sometimes even homelessness.”

While no exact figures are available, the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth reports a large increase in homeless students.

“We’re hearing from the college presidents and leadership that more and more students are struggling,” Michelle Asha Cooper of the Institute for Higher Education told reporters. “Some are taking out pretty large amounts of student loans to finance their education as well as their living costs. Some are enrolling part time, some are even dropping out.”

The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) even created an “Economic Crisis Response Team” to help homeless and hungry students stay enrolled. NPR reported the story of one such UCLA student, Diego Sepulveda, who ended up homeless after losing his full-time job at Subway. Now Sepulveda alternates between sleeping in the library, student center and friend’s couches, catching occasional showers in a school gym.

With tuition being jacked up and social services being cut, it has often been left to students–such as Sepulveda’s friends–to help each other out. For example, Abdullah Jadallah, a 22-year-old UCLA engineering student, started a food pantry after noticing how many of his classmates were going hungry.

Last year, Washington Post reporter Petula Dvorak chronicled the story of two homeless D.C.-area students, Ronnell Wilson and Miracle Lewis.

Lewis–in her late twenties–had worked as a flight attendant for United Airlines, but decided to go back to school after mass layoffs in 2008. She got a scholarship to study business and took temp jobs to make ends meet. But when temp work “dried up,” she found herself living in the Calvary Women’s Shelter in Northwest Washington, D.C.

Wilson–also in his twenties–was a forklift operator before he decided to go back to college. He took classes at the University of the District of Colombia during the day, and worked at California Pizza Kitchen at night. Then he got laid off and ended up homeless. Wilson continued to take classes, but had to reorganize his schedule to make sure he could get to the shelter on time to get a place to sleep.

The New York Times similarly reported the story of 22-year-old Fallon Coffer, a homeless college student who worked as a taxi dispatcher at night, and went to class during the day, taking care of her young son in-between.

***

While hard data on the exact extent of homelessness among college students has not been collected, broader trends are sure to push even more students up to and over the edge.

As Kathryn Edwards and Alexander Fernandez argued in their recent Economic Policy Institute (EPI) briefing paper, “The Kid’s Aren’t Alright: A Labor Market Analysis of Young Workers,” official unemployment for workers aged 16 to 24 peaked at 19.2 percent after the 2008 recession. This is the highest rate since records started being kept in 1948.

Real unemployment–counting involuntary part-time workers and those who have given up looking for work–is probably twice that rate.

“Though young adults represent only 13.4 percent of the workforce,” Edwards and Fernandez wrote, “they now account for 26.4 percent of unemployed workers.” The unemployment rate for young Black workers stands at 32.5 percent and 24.2 percent for Latinos. Unemployment for teenage workers–aged 16 to 19–stands at more than 50 percent.

This high level of youth unemployment has a major impact on college students, as so many students must also work in order to make ends meet. In 2008, 45 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds were enrolled in high school or college as well as employed (or looking for work).

With students and their family members losing jobs as tuition increases escalate and social services are cut, more and more students will fall through the tattered social safety net.

Moreover, since the 2008 recession, hunger and homelessness has mushroomed among all age groups. Late last year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors reported up to 30 and 40 percent increases in homelessness in several U.S. cities.

One in eight Americans now relies on food donations from the relief charity Feeding America–an increase of 1 million people each week in 2010 over 2006, and a 50 percent increase in the number of children. Similarly, one in eight people in the U.S. rely on food stamps for their daily bread.

***

Times were already tough before the recession. But before 2008, family members and friends could take up more of the slack. If the parent of a student lost their job, the student could drop out of school for a while and work in order to help the family. Conversely, if students found themselves in trouble, loans and help from family could keep things going until graduation. The breadth of the crisis is sabotaging this privatized welfare system.

To make matters worse, Corporate America is looking for even more ways to take advantage. Business Week has reported an increase in for-profit “educational” outfits–such as the University of Phoenix and Chancellor University–targeting homeless people to fleece them of financial aid money, often leaving them with a mountain of defaulted student loan debt.

These predatory “colleges” are big business. One of Cleveland-based Chancellor University’s major investors is “Neutron Jack” Welch, former CEO of General Electric, who got his nickname by firing some 100,000 GE workers. Goldman Sachs owns 38 percent of the for-profit Education Management Corporation in Pittsburgh.

Chancellor and Phoenix have sent recruiters into homeless shelters to sign people up for classes, regardless of their ability to pay or even attend school. After they get tuition money–paid for by student loans and financial aid–these companies can churn through yet more students, never worrying about pesky facts like graduation rates or what happens to their would-be students.

As Business Week notes, this type of predatory “education” isn’t new. In past recessions, there was a proliferation of for-profit “trade schools”–which more often than not failed to provide any real training for unemployed blue-collar workers.

“In the Cleveland shelters, you can still find people with trade school debts from 20 years ago,” Business Week wrote. “Those who don’t repay their student loans [today] may forfeit their chances for public housing and are also ineligible for deferral financial aid to return to college.”

As Ardetra Jones, from the Tacoma Rescue Mission told Business Week, “If the homeless have a bad student loan, they can’t find a place to live, they can’t go back to school. And in this economy there’s not a lot of work. That leaves a person with no options.”

On the one hand, college students are being driven into homelessness and hunger. On the other, the homeless and hungry are being preyed upon by for-profit “educational” vultures. George Clinton best summed up this sort of thing when he coined the phrase “America eats its young.”

Enough is enough. Education–including higher education–is a human right. Not only should tuition be paid in total, the living expenses of students should be subsidized. Until we win that greater victory, we must meet every instance of cutbacks and tuition hikes with protest and action. Some of our fellow students’ very lives are on the line.

Adam Turl writes for the Socialist Worker.
.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/us/since-recession-more-young-americans-are-homeless.html

We have partnered with the Department of Children and Families since 2007 and host the ACCESS Florida lobbies in both St. Lucie and Indian River Counties.  Client families can apply for and check the status of Food Stamp and other benefit applications, and those with emergency and long term needs can utilize hunger relief and crisis case management services. The centers currently assist over 700 families every day on the Treasure Coast.

This unique, co-location partnership has allowed Harvest Food & Outreach Center and the Department of Children and Families to offer a holistic approach to serving those in need and make life-skills education and crisis management services available to those applying for ACCESS Florida benefits.  The partnership led to a nomination for the “Silver Hunger Award” which Harvest Food & Outreach received in January of this year.

In partnership with Workforce Solutions, Harvest Food & Outreach Center rolled out its expanded “Passport to Prosperity” Program in May of 2011, which combines Life Skills Education with On the Job Training to families receiving public assistance benefits.  To date 31 families have successfully completed the 12 week program and are on their way to self-sufficiency.

A friend of the Elliott’s suggested they stop in to our Orlando location – the Community Food & Outreach Center - in hopes of getting a helpful hand-up during their difficult transition. After consulting with crisis staff, the Elliott’s were able to receive help with food, medical and career preparedness assistance for Kim as she tried to find a job. Meanwhile, Jeremiah enrolled in vocational school in preparation for a better future for his family.

The Elliott’s credit the Community Food & Outreach with providing what they needed for “keeping a roof over ours and our kids’ heads”.

UPDATE: With assistance from the Community Food & Outreach crisis counselor, Kim Elliott found a job and is now working at a food company in Orlando.

Hard times for the majority of the American people not only affect those receiving benefits from our organization but those who support us as well. As the needs rise, we must find alternative means of providing for our community, and that is exactly what we are doing. We are now reaching out through several avenues to connect and network with those in a position to give, support and advocate for our cause. We are committed to making positive changes in the lives of those in poverty to help them break the cycle that keeps them from living a completely self-sustained life. Join us in our fight, be a strong, loud voice for change, and do for your neighbor what every neighbor should…lend a hand.