This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
-- "a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill);
-- an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or
-- a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings."
The last category includes people sleeping in vehicles, garages, bus stations, store fronts, campgrounds, on streets, or other suboptimal places not fit for human habitation.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH)
NAEH "works collaboratively with public, private, and nonprofit partners to develop, analyze, and advocate for policy solutions" for a growing national problem, poorly addressed, and rarely, if ever, mentioned by the dominant media.
Besides the chronically homeless, comprising about 18% of the total, homelessness results from factors including poverty, job loss, home foreclosure, loss of public assistance, divorce, domestic violence, drug or alcohol abuse, serious illness, mental illness, unaffordable housing, the lack of emergency help, and a federal government that doesn't give a damn.
Youth homelessness is another major issue, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Office of Applied Studies (OAS) estimating in 2004 that about 1.6 million youths ran away from home and slept on the street in the past 12 months. Other estimates range up to 2.8 million annually, many on streets or in places unfit for human habitation.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
