U.S. homeless count reaches highest level ever; California numbers staggering

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[–]kingsmegLiberté, égalité, fraternité 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

About 653,000 people were experiencing homelessness during the January snapshot.

LOL

Just 1 'charity', the Salvation Army, is charging the US government for beds and food for +12 million people. Approx. 10% of the US is homeless.

[–]sdl5 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

They had 8M bed nights in 2021- from shelters to permanent housing complexes.

Iow, it included many NOT HOMELESS but well past that.

And that unknown lesser homeless bed nights then needs to be divided by 365 in theory to get how many people... But we don't have that data.

The 10+% figure is "insecure" as in it includes everyone currently living in housing they pay for, BUT that feels worry they could lose shelter if something bad happened.

Bit we don't have the other percentage.

DON'T get me wrong, SA is one of the few orgs trying to really help those who want help- but don't misrepresent or misunderstand what those claims and terms mean either.

[–]kingsmegLiberté, égalité, fraternité 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

If you are sleeping in a city shelter, on your friend's couch, or in your car, you are homeless. You do not have a 'home', a place that is your own.

[–]sdl5 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Agreed- but that is NOT what they are counting in the statstics:

They are adding in every single person they have secured longterm to permanent housing, and counting each night in a year for all of them to boot.

If they simply counted the number of shelter beds and provided that with total nights use a year, or added emergency shelters too, or also added the number of individual clients in a year they could not fit in a shelter-

Well, the first would be limited, but it is all they currently roll into the global number.

Giving the second would help.

Giving also the third would be a FAR BETTER way to gauge how many need real help vs how many are getting it currently.

[–]sdl5 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Do they really? Or is that how many beds/night for an entire year?

[–]RandomCollection[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

https://archive.ph/dH88G

“While numerous factors drive homelessness, the most significant causes are the shortage of affordable homes and the high cost of housing that have left many Americans living paycheck to paycheck and one crisis away from homelessness,” Olivet said.

Housing is just too expensive in the US. The issue is that if there is a major economic crisis, I think that the number of homeless will rapidly grow as more Americans fall between the cracks.

[–]sdl5 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is nothing more than a money grab by activist "non profit" orgs relating.

If they FIX the problem they lose a lucrative lifetime gig.

If they are HONEST about the real majority of homeless they lose the housing govt cash windfall AND the major powder players backing.