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UNITED STATES
HOMELESS STATISTICS |
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According to official U.S. government statistics issued in November of 2007, more than 1
in 10 people in the United States go hungry. More than 35 million people went hungry
in 2006 according to the same report; almost 13 million of them were children and many of
the rest were impoverished senior citizens. In response, David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World said: "The U.S.
is the only industrialised nation that still allows hunger within its borders."
While it is literally impossible to obtain entirely
accurate statistics regarding poverty in America, valid estimates can be made based
on a variety of agency, government and other sources. On August 1st, 2003, it was
estimated that 2.5 - 3.5 million Americans were entirely homeless and millions more lived in
vehicles, garages and similar makeshift accommodations. According to the National Coalition for the Homeless,
the bare minimum of entirely homeless individuals in the United States in 2006 is more
than 750,000.
The actual number is likely 2-4 million or more, as many cities only count
the homeless who are actually in shelters on a given random date, thus reporting grossly
under-inflated figures which in turn, are published as "fact" by federal agencies and the media
(see newspaper article addressing severe Nashville descrepancies below). Suffice it to
say, many of those who work with homeless war veterans claim that homeless veterans alone number in
the hundreds of thousands. Many Americans have part-time shelter, moving in and out of
motels and other weekly rental situations; when these and others who live in garages, motorhomes,
automobiles, abandoned buildings and other forms of makeshift housing are included, the number
of Americans who do not have a permanent residence is likely well over 10
million.
According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, over 60 American cities have
essentially made it criminal to be poor, introducing measures to make it illegal to beg or sleep
on the street, to sit in bus shelters for more than an hour, to stand on the corner soliciting
work and some cities, including Las Vegas, have made it illegal to feed the homeless in parks and
other public places; this is a gross violation of federal anti-discrimination laws unless such
draconian measures are uniformly applied to citizens of all economic status, including making it
illegal to feed relatives and children or to share food with friends at a public picnic area, as
well. Meanwhile, neither the Republican or Democratic Party has any plan whatsoever
directly addressing America's growing homeless population, nor are the homeless, including
homeless war veterans, even mentioned as a priority in their party platform agendas.
It is estimated by veterans groups that as of January, 2005, there are approximately 230,000
homeless war veterans in America. Homeless veterans from the current conflict in Iraq are
already showing up at public beaches, parks and in city shelters and due to this conflict,
the problem is expected to grow dramatically in the next several; years (see Operation Stand
Down Homeless Veteran Statistics below). If 5% of the current American military budget
were diverted to end the growing hunger within our own borders, there would be virtually no
hunger in the United States. An additional 10% diverted annually, if managed correctly,
could eventually wipe out starvation on the entire continent of Africa.
One of fastest growing statistical segments of the U.S. homeless population is single women
with children. Lack of affordable healthcare, coupled with a catastrophic family illness,
is a growing reason why many formerly working-class and middle-class productive citizens are
becoming homeless. Other homeless statistics compiled by the National Coalition for the
homeless include the following:
Approximately 50% of all homeless women and children are fleeing some form of
domestic violence. Approximately 25% of the urban homeless are children under
18. 40% of homeless men have served in the U.S. military; meanwhile, the federal budget
addressing homeless veterans was reduced in 2005. Caucasians make up only 35% of the
homeless, while 50% are African Americans; 40% are single men, 14% single women and 46% are
couples, families or children. While it is true that many homeless individuals suffer from
mental disabilities and addiction, several studies indicate that much of the problem, especially
in regards to addiction, occurs after individuals become homeless, thus making
homelessness a cause of addiction, rather than the other way around, as is so often assumed
by many of those attempting to excuse themselves for not wanting to help.
Before the Creator of the universe, there is no excuse whatsoever for a nation as wealthy
as the United States to have one person within our borders who does not have adequate food,
shelter and health care. And it is beyond the iniquity of ancient Babylon, Egypt, Sodom
and Rome combined that our leaders of all party affiliation, who hold the supreme advantage of
historical perspective, do not make alleviation and elimination of poverty and disease
America's number one priority issue.
Historically, it is beyond all argument that if a nation does not address its own sick and
poor, that nation will not long survive, as major plagues and other diseases spread throughout
the least on up to the highest rungs of a society without partiality. Historically, large
populations living in poverty without forseeable hope of improvement, either violently revolt
and/or, lose all form of country loyalty and welcome a conquering enemy to come in and improve
their meager lives of disease, hunger and misery. According to both Ezekiel and Jesus,
God without partiality, will judge all nations by whether or not they help their sick and their
poor. The historical bottom-line agreed upon by even the most atheistic of scholars is
that nations in the long run, will truly reap what they sow; nations that do not help their
sick and poor will not likely be around very long on the history time clock to reap much of
anything. See Fleeing Sodom for
more details.
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| TARA "Little Bit"
COLE
On an
August summer night in 2006, a young homeless female named Tyra Cole was sleeping on a warf at
Riverfront Park in Nashville, Tennessee, when two men stepped out of the shadows and rolled her
into the Cumberland River. Witnessess tried but were unable to rescue her.
Tara's
body was found ten days later when the city, after several nights of ongoing vigil and much
prodding from local advocates, finally moved a barge. This is the second known
deliberate killing of a homeless Nashville
resident within the past two years, both apparently murdered for being poor.
Click
Here for Story and "Ballad of Tara Cole"
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According to Mother Jones Magazine, there are between 200,000 and 300,000 U.S. homeless war
veterans. Below is an article about homeless Iraq war veterans from The Associated
Press.
IRAQ VETS RETRUNING TO U.S.
FACE ANOTHER BATTLE:
HOMELESSNESS
In New York, Ralph, 30, who declined to give
his last name, shows how he looked in uni-
form.
He served in Iraq but is now homeless.
By VERENA DOBNIK — NEW YORK — Herold Noel had nowhere to call home after returning from military service in
Iraq. He slept in his Jeep, taking care to find a parking space where he wouldn't get a
ticket.
"Then the nightmares would start," says the former Army private first class, who drove a fuel
truck in Iraq. "I saw a baby decapitated when it was run over by a truck; I relived that
every night." Across the nation on any evening, hundreds of veterans of the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan like Noel, 26, are homeless, according to government estimates.
The reasons are many. For some, residual stress from daily insurgent attacks and roadside bombs
makes it tough to adjust to civilian life; some can't navigate government-assistance programs;
others can't afford a house or apartment.
They are living on the edge in towns and cities from Washington state to California and
Florida. Some of the hardest hit are in New York City, where housing costs "can be very
tough," says Peter Dougherty, head of the federal government's Homeless Veterans Program.
As a member of the National Guard, Nadine Beckford patrolled New York train stations after the
Sept. 11 attacks and served a year in the Persian Gulf region. But when she returned home
from Iraq, she found her storage locker had been emptied and her bank account had been
depleted. She thinks her boyfriend took everything and "just vanished."
Six months after her return to the United States, she lives in a homeless shelter in Brooklyn,
sharing a room with eight other women and attending a job-training program. Her parents
live in Jamaica and are barely making ends meet, she says.
"I'm just an ordinary person who served. I'm not embarrassed about my homelessness, because the
circumstances that created it were not my fault," says Beckford, 30, who was a military-supply
specialist at a U.S. base in Iraq, a sitting duck for around-the-clock attacks "where hell was
your home."
It was a "hell" familiar to Noel during his eight months in Iraq. But it didn't stop when
he returned home to New York last year and couldn't find a job to support his wife and three
children. Without enough money to rent an apartment, he turned to the housing programs
for vets, "but they were overbooked," Noel says.
While he was in Iraq, his family had lived in military housing in Georgia. In New York,
the family ended up in a Bronx shelter "with people who were just out of prison,
and with roaches," Noel said. "I'm a young black man from the ghetto, but this was
culture shock. This is not what I fought for, what I almost died for. This is not
what I was supposed to come home to."
There are about 200,000 homeless vets in the United States, according to government
figures. About 10 percent are from either the 1991 Gulf War or the current one, and
about 40 percent are Vietnam veterans.
Noel doesn't blame the Army, which "helped make my dreams come true," he says, recalling the
military-base life in Georgia and in South Korea that his family enjoyed before his deployment
to Iraq.
"I had a house, a car; they gave me everything they promised me," he said. "Now it's up
to the government and the people we're defending to take care of their soldiers."
COPS: HOMELESS PATIENT "DUMPED" ON SKID ROW
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A hospital van dropped off a paraplegic man on Skid Row,
allegedly leaving him crawling in the street with nothing more than a soiled gown and a broken
colostomy bag, police said.
Witnesses who said they saw the incident Thursday wrote down a phone number on the van and took
down its license-plate number, which helped detectives connect the vehicle to Hollywood
Presbyterian Medical Center, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site. Police said
the incident was a case of "homeless dumping" and were questioning officials from
the hospital.
"I can't think of anything colder than that," said Detective Russ Long. "There was no
mission around, no services. It's the worst area of Skid Row."
The case comes three months after the L.A. city attorney's office filed its first indictment
for homeless dumping against Kaiser Permanente for an incident earlier last year. In that
case, a 63-year-old patient from the hospital's Bellflower medical center was
videotaped wandering the streets of Skid Row in a hospital gown and socks.
An after-hours call Thursday to Hollywood Presbyterian seeking comment was not immediately
returned. Kaylor Shemberger, the hospital's executive vice president, told the Times the
incident was under investigation.
"Obviously we are very concerned about the information that has been presented to us,"
Shemberger said. "If some of the facts are correct, it is clearly not in line with our
policy of handling these types of patients."
City officials have accused more than a dozen hospitals of dumping patients and criminals on
Skid Row. Hospital officials have denied the allegations, but some said they had taken
homeless patients to Skid Row service providers.
In 2005, Hollywood Presbyterian was accused of homeless dumping. At the time, a top
executive denied the charge, but said Skid Row service providers offered treatment and care
for some patients who had nowhere else to go.
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