Nation's Homeless Straining Shelters

(CBS/AP)  The nation has three-quarters of a million homeless people, filling emergency shelters through the year and spilling into special seasonal shelters in the coldest months, the government said Wednesday.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated there were 754,000 homeless people in 2005, including those living in shelters, transitional housing and on the street. That's about 300,000 more people than available beds in shelters and transitional housing.

"Most Americans are just a paycheck away from being on the streets or being in a shelter," Melissa Zowaski told CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers.

Zowaski and her four kids learned that the hard way when she and her husband both lost their jobs at the same time.

The report is the government's latest attempt to count people who are notoriously difficult to track. The estimate is similar to one by an advocacy group in January.

The 2000 Census pegged the number of homeless people at 170,700, but it was widely considered an undercount. In 1996, the Urban Institute used data collected by the Census Bureau to estimate there were between 640,000 and 840,000.

Housing officials hope the new report will serve as a starting point to more accurately measure changes in the homeless population.

"Understanding homelessness is a necessary step to ending it, especially for those persons living with a chronic condition such as mental illness, an addiction, or a physical disability," HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson wrote in the report.

HUD developed the estimate using data collected by local agencies that serve the homeless. Agencies across the country tried to count the number of people living on the street one night in January 2005. The agencies also collected information about race, gender, and disability status from people staying in emergency shelters and transitional housing from February to April 2005.

Among the findings for people in shelters and transitional housing:

Nearly half were single adult men.

Nearly a quarter were minors.

Less than 2 percent were older than 65.

About 59 percent were members of minority groups.

About 45 percent were black.

About a quarter had a disability, though experts said the percentage is probably much higher.

The Urban Institute recently did a study on homeless people in Santa Monica, Calif., and found only 6 percent of those using services for the homeless did not have a mental illness or a substance abuse problem, said Martha Burt, a researcher at the institute.

Yolanda DeNeal says she was told help was available for her and her three kids if she was a recovering addict, alcoholic, or ex-con, Bowers reports. But she was a college student who lost her job.

"What about the people who go to school every day, who work every day and can't make ends meet?" DeNeal asks.

Emergency shelters are more than 90 percent full on average nights, the report said. They would be over capacity if not for seasonal shelters.

By comparison, less than three-quarters of transitional housing units for families are occupied on an average night.

HUD has been shifting resources from emergency shelters to transitional and permanent housing for years. The number of emergency shelter beds dropped by 35 percent from 1996 to 2005, to 217,900.

Meanwhile, the number of transitional housing beds increased by 38 percent during the same period, to 220,400. The number of beds in permanent supported housing increased by 83 percent, to 208,700.

"We ought to be looking for ways to move people from shelters into permanent housing," said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

"Building shelter beds doesn't result in these people being housed," Roman said. "But clearly, short of housing, everybody should have a roof over their head. This points out that we are not there, either."

[us_infidel]

Send them to Iraq. Since they are supposidly ex-military, we can use them to drive the convoy vehicles. Problem solved.

[cathaleen]

There is answer to the homeless problem.

1. Make rentals more affordable.
Make it easier for the govt to subsidize
people who lost jobs so they can get
their lives back and take care of their
families.
2. Put the mentally ill back into the
institutions. (They were all released
in 1981).
3. Raise the minimum wage.
4. As for the drug addicts and alchies - let
them help themselves.

[observantx]

Oh yeah. The economy is doing great!

With all the good paying jobs exported out of the country and almost all families needing both Mom and Dad working to keep ahead, is it any wonder that we have over three quarters of a million people without housing and going hungry (or as our guvmint wants to call it, %u201Chousing challenged%u201D and %u201Cfood insecure%u201D).

So it's back to the good old days, where the peasants are many and the privileged are few.

But that%u2019s OK. If the average working man can%u2019t afford bread, he can always eat cake.

So it's back to the good old days, where the pesants can

[afmca]

Oh this story is soooooo wrong!! Don't you know in Bush's America there are no poor, no homeless, no people without insurance ..... we all sit around all day at our country clubs trying to figure out how we will use our next million dollar bonus.

[Renegade.Rivers]

The result of this is that it leaves the veteran homeless, and many times his family too. Then if not before, out of desperation and a feeling of hopelessness, many of these Veterans, and may times their spouses as well, turn to alcohol, and drugs to take away the pain and suffering and waste away in the gutters and on the streets of some of America's finest cities.

What a life for some of America's greatest heroes, all because a system they fought to preserve, has failed them. The care of these veterans should be priority one. As a society we are no doubt responsible for the sick, the poor, the unfortunate and the disabled, but even more so our Veterans, yet many deny that responsibility on a daily basis, while using every excuse possible to justify there lack of compassion, and concern.

[Renegade.Rivers]

What this article failed to point out to me seems more important than some of the things that were pointed out.

There are 194,250 or more of these homeless, who are Veterans of the Vietnam, Gulf and Iraq wars or those who served in the military. Countless more of these are the families of those Veterans. Many of these Veterans have fallen through cracks so big, that one could drive a Mack truck through them. Many of these veterans, who lived from paycheck to paycheck since returning from the war, find their disability become so bad that they can no longer work. When this happens. it can be disastrous. In some cases, many more than publicized, the VA and social security system makes it so hard for some of these Veterans to get disability, that the Veteran sometimes has to struggle for 10 or more years, just to get the disability they deserve. What happens in the mean time is tragic, and mentally exhausting. Many of these Veterans, who suffer from disabling physical and/or mental conditions see their lives waste away right before their very eyes. In some case, wives, grow weary, no longer able to cope with the situation due to the abuse brought on by the mental ills of the veteran, and the poverty, and divorce the veteran, getting the home if they have one, in the divorce. Many more times the veteran, faces financial ruin because of a lack of substantial income, and see their home repossessed.

[coffeehead-2009]

It's ALL part of "Free Trade" and our new world order - "Capitalism" and the longer we are "distracted" with the "lie made" confusion, the more we dig in. Time for Americans to THINK and refuse the "subliminal" b.s.

CAPITALISM LASSIEZ FAIRE- the reason we are like we are in this country AND the reason why we had the "Great Depression". So get ready to pack the car and hit the streets if your income isn't in the 6 figures.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The federal government also contributed to the growing gap between the rich and middle-class. Calvin Coolidge's administration (and the conservative-controlled government) favored business, and as a result the wealthy who invested in these businesses. An example of legislation to this purpose is the Revenue Act of 1926, signed by President Coolidge on February 26, 1926, which reduced federal income and inheritance taxes dramatically11. Andrew Mellon, Coolidge's Secretary of the Treasury, was the main force behind these and other tax cuts throughout the 1920's.

[coffeehead-2009]

In effect, he was able to lower federal taxes such that a man with a million-dollar annual income had his federal taxes reduced from $600,000 to $200,00012. Even the Supreme Court played a role in expanding the gap between the socioeconomic classes. In the 1923 case Adkins v. Children's Hospital, the Supreme Court ruled minimum-wage legislation unconstitutional13.

The large and growing disparity of wealth between the well-to-do and the middle-income citizens made the U.S. economy unstable. For an economy to function properly, total demand must equal total supply. In an economy with such disparate distribution of income it is not assured that demand will always equal supply. Essentially what happened in the 1920's was that there was an oversupply of goods. It was not that the surplus products of industrialized society were not wanted, but rather that those whose needs were not satiated could not afford more, whereas the wealthy were satiated by spending only a small portion of their income. A 1932 article in Current History articulates the problems of this maldistribution of wealth:

[searingtruth]

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."
George Washington, The Rules of Civility, Circa 1748

A Future of the Brave - www.searingtruth.com

[haneyr-2009]

OK let's start with poor little antoniof123.

I don't know why people with square heads continue to try to put them in a round hole and push the lever to flush their vitriol over people they don't know. Sorry to once again disappoint you and the other Christian-phobes out there by saying I don't care if there is a law for or against abortion. I personally don't want an innocent baby killed, but it is not my position to pass final judgement on the people involved in this infanticide. And since you seem so intent on taking the low road in conversations you are not equipped to expound upon, let me say to you in simple terms. If there is a woman out there who does not want her baby and does not want an abortion then I will gladly work out what ever arrangements with her for a natural birth and adopt the child into my home or find one she may deem suitable for her child to grow healthy and whole. My wife and I are not rich in money but would gladly put up what it takes to do the right thing.

Fortunately for you I don't expect you to honor your side of the conversation and put up anything but your nose. So if you know a woman who needs help and not hot air let me know and I will make sure she gets all the loving care she and her child need.