Anitra's Web: Who Is Homeless?

Homelessness & Poverty
Homeless Not Helpless

Who Is Homeless?

Anyone can become homeless. The more friends, family, and resources you have, the less likely it is that a sudden disaster will leave you homeless, but things happen. Large-scale layoffs; floods & earthquakes; accident or illness that decimates a family and leaves the survivor in depression: all of these things have left people who had many friends, family and resources suddenly homeless.

Anything that makes it more difficult to compete for resources makes it more likely that you will become homeless. Therefore there is a higher percentage of homeless people among the following:

People with disabilities
People with mental health issues
Anyone who has experienced domestic violence, rape, or other violence, including abuse as a child. (As purely anecdotal evidence, every homeless person I have known well enough that they would reveal such things has experienced some form of abuse as a child.)
Veterans, usually as a result of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), sometimes as a result of untreated physical illness
Racial minorities
Sexual minorities
People with children. Women & children are the fastest-growing section of homeless people, but single, low-income fathers are at extremely high risk for homelessness, also, and receive very little in the way of attention and resources. Having two parents doesn't make a family immune from homelessness either.
Children and teenagers, especially children of low-income families
Foster children
Elderly men, and elderly women
Illiteracy, lack of education, drug addiction, and alcoholism are also contributing factors
Anyone who has been imprisoned is many times more likely to become homeless

The people I shared shelter, or other programs, with while I was homeless included:

An older woman (late fifties or early sixties) and her adult son (late twenties or early thirties), both of whom worked. They lived together, usually in an apartment. Whenever an emergency came up -- the car breaking down, one of them getting sick -- they lost their apartment and stayed in shelter for awhile until they could get an apartment again. They were technically "above poverty level," making just a bit too much to qualify for assistance programs. There were programs that would help him, and programs that would help her -- but only if they split up their family.
A woman who had recently graduated from college, and was working. By her personal morality, paying back her student loans took priority over everything else, including getting her own apartment.
A woman who had left an abusive marriage, and who was suffering from depression. No treatments had yet worked for her. Periodically she moved to a new area of the country. (This is colloquially known in support groups as "the geographical cure.")
Another woman who had left an abusive marriage, who was working. She lived in her car, carefully maintaining her clothing and grooming so that no one would guess she was homeless.
A lab technician who had developed an incapacitating back problem. Vocational Rehab was paying for medical care, and even bought him a new suit for interviews when he was ready to go back to work -- but he received no money for living expenses.
A carpenter with a Ph.D. in philosophy. He worked often, but only on temporary jobs.
Many couples who both had jobs, usually carpentry, factory work, or minimum wage. It is impossible to have sex, or even sleep next to each other, in a homeless shelter. Each couple had different way of adapting. Some budgeted one night a month (or more) in a motel. Some spent one or two nights a week sleeping outside in some wooded area. Once Tent City started, many went to Tent City, where they could sleep together in privacy.
A professor of mathematics suffering PTSD from extreme childhood abuse.
A psychiatrist, a woman who had a severe car accident, then financial problems because of medical bills and reduced earnings, then an emotional breakdown as a result of the accumulated stress, then a total loss of income due to the emotional breakdown...
The arthritic woman in her late sixties who slept beside me on a mat on the concrete floor of a church basement.
A woman and her teenaged daughter, who had to stay in separate shelters.
An El Salvadoran immigrant.
A young black man who got up every morning at 4AM and ironed his clothes in the dark, then walked a mile to the bus that would take him to work.
A young man who had been doing volunteer work in the shelters he stayed at, for several years, and who seemed highly capable. Some people questioned why he was still homeless. After we were friends for several months, I learned that he was born with severe physical problems and has six operations on his head in his first few years of life. He still suffered a kind of epilepsy under stress.

Although I knew a number of people who had addiction or alcoholism issues, it didn't seem to me that the percentage was any higher than among the people I had known when I was housed. Then again, I grew up with alcoholic parents, and until about 38 I was a poster child for codependency, tending to find myself in the company of alcoholics and addicts at a higher than average rate.

Some homeless people are more visible than others. Those most like the standard stereotype of "homeless people" are often not homeless at all. They have housing, and often families, but their addictions or mental difficulties drive them out to the street; or, they have housing and the way they make their living is panhandling or working street cons like "I'm on my way to pick up my paycheck but I've run out of gas." On the other hand, most of those who are homeless aren't seen on the street at all because they are inside somewhere working, going to school, or doing something else to help themselves and/or to help others. You could be standing next to a homeless woman at the bus stop and not know it because she is dressed for her office job. You could be standing next to a homeless man and not know it because he is dressed for his 92^nd interview.

Homeless people sleeping in doorways are highly visible. They are also highly vulnerable. Many homeless people who cannot find shelter won't sleep at all at night. They walk, or ride the bus, or if they have any money at all nurse a cup of coffee at an all-night diner -- anything to stay in well-lighted areas with some safety. Then during the day they find someplace they can doze: perhaps a park, or a chair at the library, or the bus again. Some day shelters offer a place to nap, but very few.

While many housed people I talk to estimate than one to ten percent of homeless people are women, the homeless people I have talked to -- including homeless men -- estimate that 30 percent of the homeless people in Seattle are women, and some place it at 50 percent. Homeless women are especially invisible, because they usually feel most vulnerable. Homeless women are far less likely than men to disclose being homeless. This is one of the contributing factors to women staying homeless for longer than men, on the average.

Most co-ed shelters or other co-ed programs have perhaps one or two percent women. Seattle's Tent City, however, with an atmosphere of safety, security, and zero tolerance for abuse, is about 30 percent women, at times up to 50 percent.

In another aspect of "who is homeless," anyone homeless who is in a non-standard category is less likely to find shelter. This includes the single fathers mentioned above; women seeking refuge from domestic violence who have teenage sons with them; same-sex couples; adults and parents who stay together; unmarried couples; "families" of people who have bonded together and take care of each other but are not legally or biologically related; people with service animals or any animal that they cannot bear to part with; people who work non-standard hours.

Specific issues:

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