Homelessness

4 Pages 929 Words

The need for emergency shelters has shown a dramatic incline in the past years. The demand for emergency shelters has rose 500% since 1988 (“Not Gone, but Forgotten?” 1). Many of people every night are stranded outside with not even a blanket for the night because all the shelters are full and sometimes the shelters will not except certain people. In some places, the waiting list to get board on a full time shelter will range from 18 to 20 months for families. The need for emergency shelters has been high do to the amount of the loss in volunteer work as well. The shelter availability in larger cities for shelter has become unreal. In Minnesota’s the nightly shelter population quadrupled between 1985 and 1997 (“Not Gone, but Forgotten?” 1). San Francisco’s Coalition for the homeless estimates that 16,000 people are there each night without a shelter, twice as many as 10 years ago (“Not Gone, but Forgotten?” 1). The homeless population continues to grow rapidly and the shelters are not growing fast enough to help keep them off the streets. Because of the extreme growth of the homeless it may be hard to provide shelter in larger cities. Housing expenses have rose so high in the 1990’s that it is hard for an average person to make house payments now. About half of the nation’s poorest households spend 70% or more of their monthly income on housing (Wright 2). In the median state a minimum-wage worker would need to work 87 hours a week to afford a two bedroom apartment at 30% of his or her income (“Why are People Homeless?” 2). In the last 10 years housing prices have almost doubled in there value in most smaller homes. Many people can not aford their homes anymore due to the increase in housing expenses. The employment field is becoming very competitive and it is becoming difficult for the homeless to find jobs. A survey in California determined that 56% of businesses require a home address and telephone number befo...