Homelessness Present and Future

Homelessness is one of the biggest urban social issues in the United States of America with

over half a million individuals being classified as homelessness. It comes as no surprise that New

York City tops the list of U.S cities with the largest population of homeless individuals according

to Forbes. This led to a decision to focus on homelessness in New York City as its current state

would provide the largest population sample and showcase underlying causes of homelessness

which would be fly under the radar in smaller population samples, highlight and examine the

effectiveness of actions that the city as well as non-governmental organizations have taken to

combat homelessness and thus lead to a more complete roadmap in the potential steps that could

be taken in order to reduce homelessness in the United States America and hopefully the world.

There are several official definitions of the term homeless. However, after intensive

research on the matter and through the lectures and assigned reading, families or individuals can

be regarded as homeless if they lack a permanent personal residence and are driven to resort to

residing in supervised private or public facilities. This means that said family or individual may

live in places that range from public city streets, their vehicle and abandoned buildings to staying

in a shelter or mission provided by the city or by a non-governmental charity organization. This

definition of homelessness is the one that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

subscribes to whereas the Bureau of Primary Health Care extends this definition of homelessness

to include families or individuals who cannot maintain their housing situation and have to resort

to living with family members and/or acquaintances (colloquially known as couch surfing). The

Bureau of Primary Health Cares definition is lauded by charity organizations that specialize in

helping the homeless as they deem it more inclusive thus has greater potential of helping the people

in need of assistance.
 Homelessness in New York City has reached a dire situation with the New York Times

dubbing it an epidemic, estimating a population of 60,939 individuals being classified as homeless

any day of the week by the end of 2014. This was accompanied by a map showing a significant

cluster of reports street homelessness in Harlem, Midtown, Park Slope, Williamsburg and Jackson

Heights. The article notes that most reports of street homelessness consistently come from

Manhattan. Forbes data acquired from the U.S department of Housing and Urban development

is more current and put the population of homeless individuals in New York City at 73,523 in

2016. Coalition for the Homeless had the most current data, claiming that the problem of

homelessness in the city had reached the highest levels since the 1930s with 62,306 homeless

people of which there were 15,769 families with 24,121 children sleeping in municipal shelter

system of New York City each night in October 2016. It also claimed that there have been at least

127,652 homeless individuals of which over 45000 were children, who have utilized the shelter

system in the fiscal year of 2016. According to the organization, these numbers do not account for

thousands more who sleep on the streets yet they are 83 percent higher than they were in 2006.

The coalition adds that the reason New York Citys official numbers for the population of the

homeless underestimate the true value, is due to the sporadic nature of the public places where

homeless people choose to sleep. The Coalitions data also showed that minorities were more

likely to end up homeless with 58% of the homeless individuals in New York Citys shelter

program being African-Americans, 31% being Latino, 7% being Caucasian, 3% being of unknown

ethnicity and 1% being Asian-American. The data also showed that homeless single adults, when

compared to homeless families, were more likely to be homeless as a result of serious mental

illness and/or addiction coupled with other severe health disorders. This meant that single adults

were more likely to be chronically homeless. To put this into perspective, an estimated 10,624
single adult men and 4,014 single adult women sleep in New York City shelters on any given

night. Comparatively, 23,496 adults in families sleep in the shelters every night. This means that

at least 38.4% of the adult homeless population in New York City are most likely chronically

homeless.

A common consensus on the primary causes of homelessness in New York City is that the

lack of affordable housing is one of the biggest drivers that push low income families into

homelessness. Gentrification is widely seen as one of the major causes for the lack of affordable

housing as property developers take advantage of the low property values in low income

neighborhoods to push out the poor and replace low income housing with mansions catering to the

wealthy elite. An example of this was highlighted in the November 4th issue of the New York

Times where property developers bought up an 11-apartment low income housing structure and

demolished it to build a single-family mansion with an estimated asking price of $16 million.

Another equally if not arguably more influential cause for homelessness among families is

domestic violence with the 2010 New York City consolidated plan reporting that a third of families

using the shelter system were homeless due to domestic violence. Data from the department of

Homeless services for early 2016 showed 28.1% of shelter entrants listed domestic violence as the

reason of entry whereas 27.5% listed eviction as the reason for entry. Job loss is seen as a

contributor to the amount of homeless people in the citys shelters but city-commissioned study in

2005 found that nearly 80% of homeless family heads with recent work histories and over 50% of

those with an education up to college level.

 http://www.endhomelessness.org/library/entry/SOH2016#ChapterOne

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20161026/BLOGS04/161029881/domestic-

violence-emerges-as-primary-driver-of-homelessness-in-new-york-city

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/nyregion/destroying-an-11-apartment-structure-to-

build-a-

mansion.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FHomeless%20Persons&action=click&contentC

ollection=timestopics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement

=12&pgtype=collection

http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/the-catastrophe-of-homelessness/facts-about-

homelessness/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/nyregion/in-new-york-having-a-job-or-2-doesnt-

mean-having-a-home.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/11/25/the-u-s-cities-where-the-largest-

homeless-pop-infographic/#7da9bcda71fd

http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-homelessness-new-york-city/

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/21/nyregion/new-york-homeless-

people.html?_r=0

http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/the-catastrophe-of-homelessness/facts-about-

homelessness/