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Study: 744,000 homeless in U.S.
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| Study: 744,000 homeless in U.S. First national canvass in a decade finds a quarter were chronically homeless The Associated Press Updated: 3:41 p.m. ET Jan 10, 2007 WASHINGTON - There were 744,000 homeless people in the United States in 2005, according to the first national estimate in a decade. A little more than half were living in shelters, and nearly a quarter were chronically homeless, according to the report Wednesday by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy group. A majority of the homeless were single adults, but about 41 percent were in families, the report said. The group compiled data collected by the Department of Housing and Urban Development from service providers throughout the country. It is the first national study on the number of homeless people since 1996. That study came up with a wide range for America�s homeless population: between 444,000 and 842,000. Counting people without permanent addresses, especially those living on the street, is an inexact process. But the new study is expected to provide a baseline to help measure progress on the issue. �Having this data brings all of us another step closer to understanding the scope and nature of homelessness in America, and establishing this baseline is an extremely challenging task,� HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said. �Understanding homelessness is a necessary step to addressing it successfully.� U.S. agency plans its own report HUD is preparing to release its own report on homelessness in the coming weeks, Jackson said. In the future, the department plans to issue annual reports on the number of homeless people in the U.S. Some cities and states have done their own counts of the homeless, providing a mix of trends, said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. For example, New York City and San Francisco have seen decreases, while the number of homeless in Washington, D.C., has increased, Roman said. �In the last 12 to 18 months, the homeless population has essentially exploded in Philadelphia,� said Marsha Cohen, executive director of the Homeless Advocacy Project, which provides free legal services to the homeless in Philadelphia. �We are seeing big increases in singles and families, both on the street and attempting to enter the homeless system.� �It�s a whole influx of new people, and that�s the really scary part,� Cohen said. In Columbus, Ohio, workers are scrambling to help an increasing number of people living under bridges and in wooded encampments near rivers and streams, said Barbara Poppe, executive director of the Community Shelter Board. �We�re very concerned about the health and well being of those people being out in the elements,� Poppe said. �We had an encampment set on fire, and we had a woman struck by a train.� Calif., N.Y. lead nation California was the state with most homeless people in 2005, about 170,000, followed by New York, Florida, Texas and Georgia, according to the report. Nevada had the highest share of its population homeless, about 0.68 percent. It was followed by Rhode Island, Colorado, California and Hawaii. �The driver in homelessness is the affordable housing crisis,� Roman said. �If we don�t do something to address the crisis in affordable housing we are not going to solve homelessness.� She said many of the chronically homeless have mental health and substance abuse problems. Others, she said, simply cannot afford housing. URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16564208/ |
In this country, there's only 3 reasons to be homeless...
1. You refuse to take responsibility for your life.
2. You're mentally ill.
3. You got really really really fucked over.
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| Originally posted by Krypton In this country, there's only 3 reasons to be homeless... 1. You refuse to take responsibility for your life. 2. You're mentally ill. 3. You got really really really fucked over. |
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| Originally posted by fmodena369 I agree with that...some homeless people just get fucked over..I knew a dentist who just got outta school and instantly got a job..he got cancer and all his money had 2 go 2 his health...when he beat the cancer he had no money left...thus becomin homeless. Only if homeless ppl were as hard a workers as mexicans! I've never seen a homeless mexican and I go to arizona state university! |
I think about half of them live in the ATL.
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| Originally posted by fmodena369 I agree with that...some homeless people just get fucked over..I knew a dentist who just got outta school and instantly got a job..he got cancer and all his money had 2 go 2 his health...when he beat the cancer he had no money left...thus becomin homeless. |
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| Originally posted by Krypton In this country, there's only 3 reasons to be homeless... 1. You refuse to take responsibility for your life. 2. You're mentally ill. 3. You got really really really fucked over. |
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| Originally posted by fmodena369 Only if homeless ppl were as hard a workers as mexicans! |
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| Originally posted by Krypton 3. You got really really really fucked over. |
I wonder if there ever really will be a plausible solution to this problem...
But, on a side note (this may seem stupid), does the government, aside from moral reasons, have any incentive to rid homelessness?
Nope.
It's sounds cold, but the government really couldn't care any less than they do about homeless people. People don't vote for you cause of what you're doing to help the homeless. The unfortunate part is that even if our government did care there really isn't any sure fire way to combat this issue.
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| Originally posted by WM2 Nope. It's sounds cold, but the government really couldn't care any less than they do about homeless people. People don't vote for you cause of what you're doing to help the homeless. The unfortunate part is that even if our government did care there really isn't any sure fire way to combat this issue. |
It would be a local issue. Now, tell me how many times you've seen someone running for Major, or maybe State congress that includes helping the homeless in their platform. I know I've never seen it.
Because you need an address to vote dont you?
Kind of sucks when you dont have a home, that and it's fairly much like running an electorate campaign around say, oh, free icecream for kids after school.
Makes the kids happy, sadly the little bastards don't vote.
Homeless people dont vote.
Not enough people know a homeless person well enough for a vote to be in favour of a bill.
So, when you want to be popular as a politician you don't angle things like homelessness at the non-voters unless they make up something like 5% of a population, in which case you'll give them 5% of your time on the podium to try and sway their choice. Being the homeless make up about 0.3% of people who somehow might be able to vote, they get mentioned about 0.3% of the time by politicians, usually as some kind ot token humanitarian effort to possibly sway some of the more charitable minority who believe the drivel that politicians do to win a popularity contest.
As far as the address thing I'm not certain, but you definately got the point. The amount of homless in larger cities(where they typically congrigate) is so insignificant that it offers politicians no reason to ever make an effort to help the homeless unless it's out of some sort of public image thing or a real moral concern for them. The homeless don't have enough political clout(read money) to make them worth the effort of catering to.
Course not, its a waste of time pandering to people without money. Not when theres a crap-ton of people with not a lot of money who'll vote for anyone that will give them a tax break and after all, a US election isnt won on happy thoughts alone, they need money. You give a politician money for their election and they better make damn sure that the little greasy oinker does something for you later on! Otherwise his ass is bacon when it comes around 4 years later 
So you count on federal politicians instead who are
really out of touch? And there's plenty of local
politicians who talk about the homeless problem in
areas with a big one like New York City, every
administration here does do something. It's decreased
ALOT in the last decade because of their actions.
And it's not for votes from homeless people, it's that
people care alittle even thou it's not a large piece
of thier campaign among all the other issues.
IMO, Poor people in America versus poor people in other parts of the world are not the same thing. There is opportunity in the US to get a job if you work hard at it. In other countries, there are people who want to work hard, are able bodied, and yet there are no jobs. Those are poor people. Here, it almost seems like a choice to be poor, or you are handicapped in some way.
The IMF made it part of the agreement for Mexico not to establish a labor force in order to receive funds. If there is no labor force then it makes it hard for the government to tax people in order to pay off the loan.
This I found out from a Mexican lawyer fighting for the maquiladoras in Mexico for severence pay. His few sentences answered the question for me of why there are mexican immigrants coming into the US.
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| For Its Loans, Mexico Will Pay A Weighty Price in Sovereignty : The Rescue of the Peso: A Humbling Experience By Alan Friedman International Herald Tribune Thursday, February 2, 1995 Mexico will pay a heavy price, ceding a significant chunk of its national sovereignty, in order to tap into nearly $50 billion of emergency U.S. and international loans that are designed to stanch its financial crisis. . While President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Le�n has been quick to tell domestic audiences that the new loan package will not threaten "the sovereignty of the nation," the reality is that the economic conditions expected to be imposed by the International Monetary Fund mean that his government will effectively share control of its destiny for many months to come. . The IMF guidelines, while in theory only tied to $17.5 billion of the rescue money, will almost certainly set the standard for the other major components of the package, including $10 billion of loans from the world's leading central banks and $20 billion from the U.S. Treasury. . The details of the global rescue for Mexico are going to top the agenda when finance ministers from the Group of Seven nations meet in Toronto on Friday and Saturday. But it is already clear that at the heart of any program of economic measures will be the need to burst the inflationary bubble that is resulting from Mexico's bungled devaluation of the peso. Among the conditions most likely to be set are: . - . That Mexico offer future oil revenue as collateral against the $20 billion of U.S. Treasury credits and the $10 billion of non-U.S. central bank loans that are to be coordinated by the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements, the central bankers' clearinghouse. . - . That Mexico carry out a much more rigorous management of its money supply, meaning higher interest rates that will slow down economic growth and could even plunge Mexico into a recession. . - . That Mexico tighten its fiscal policy, meaning a range of public spending cuts. . - . That Mexico impose stronger controls on credits for the development of Mexican industry that have been handed out to companies by the government much too freely. . Some Mexico-watchers may argue that this is what Mexican policymakers would have had to do under any circumstances. But there is no doubt that the conditions attached to the international rescue package will act as a powerful discipline, just as was the case in 1982, when the IMF forced Mexico into a severe austerity program following its debt crisis. . The conditions will force President Zedillo to take steps that might have been otherwise hard to push through. Yet, they will also give him an argument to use against critics, namely that without such measures the country would not have gained access to desperately needed funds and would have faced financial chaos. . Robert D. Hormats, a former senior U.S. financial official and the vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs (International) Inc., noted in an interview Wednesday that "any country that has an IMF agreement has to meet certain conditions and loses a certain amount of its own sovereignty by virtue of the fact that it has to adhere to those conditions." He added, however, that the likely conditions did not appear to be unreasonable given the situation. . Meanwhile, in domestic Mexican political terms, what almost every foreign financial official involved in the rescue agrees upon is that tough as the economic measures may be, the new loan package will hurt national pride far less than would have been the case if Mexico had been on the receiving end of congressional conditions attached to the Clinton administration's aborted $40 billion package of loan guarantees. . Among the conditions being proposed in Congress were drastic limits on Mexico's political and economic relations with Cuba, steps to clamp down on illegal emigrants headed for the United States, an increase in Mexico's minimum wage and the setting up of a currency board to keep the peso pegged to the U.S. dollar. . Most of these conditions - and especially the restrictions on ties to Cuba or the boosting of a minimum wage - were either impractical or just purely political, and they bore little relation to the curing of Mexico's liquidity crisis. Some were simply leftover ideas that congressional critics of the North American Free Trade Agreement failed to attach to that trade deal before it was approved in late 1993. . Among the sharpest consequences of the conditions that will soon be imposed on Mexico in exchange for its rescue package is the danger of recession. . "The last time the IMF imposed conditions on Mexico they caused a recession, they caused national output to drop by 15 percent in one quarter, and they caused one in three Mexicans employed in the nonenergy manufacturing sectors to lose their jobs," said Carl Weinberg, an economist at the New York-based High Frequence Economics. "This time the catastrophic contraction of money supply that will result from the conditions imposed will lead to a catastrophic recession," he added. |
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| April 26, 1999 The IMF Promotes Poor Banking Practices by Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr., Ph.D., and Brett D. Schaefer Executive Memorandum #592 In the wake of recent financial crises, experts are advancing proposals for strengthening the international financial system. In many of these plans, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) figures prominently as a source of emergency credit and promoter of sound banking practice. Unfortunately, the record of the IMF as banker to governments in financial distress does not inspire confidence. The IMF egregiously violates sound banking practices, calling into question its condemnation of the poor financial systems of loan recipients. Most recently, the decision to lend to Russia, a country that has defaulted on its debt and shows little dedication to economic reform, demonstrates that the IMF is a poor role model for sound banking. Poor Banking Policy Contributes to Crises Although the circumstances leading to financial crisis in Latin America, Asia, and Russia differed in many respects, a common thread was a lack of adequate banking supervision, transparency, and oversight. Many countries use the banking system as an instrument of development strategy. The government chooses industries and ventures it believes will contribute to development. It then directs credit to these "winners," often by encouraging commercial lenders to favor those industries. This policy undermines the growth of a sound banking system by preventing banks from assessing loan applications on the basis of such criteria as likelihood of repayment and available collateral. These highly regulated banking systems provide the perfect means for corrupt officials to funnel funds to politically connected industries and individuals. Overall financial instability increases because loan assessments based on economic and business criteria, including financial viability, are suppressed in favor of loans made for political priorities. Such a system produces more bad loans and losses than a banking system based on sound credit practices. Nontransparent accounting to conceal lax lending policies also frequently hinders these systems. The lack of transparency conceals the nature of the lending institutions' overall risk and exposure, increasing the likelihood that sound financial institutions will enter into business with these corrupted banks. This system exacerbated the Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998, which otherwise would likely have been a limited, regional crisis. Setting a Poor Example In exchange for billions in credit to governments around the world, the IMF requires countries to implement specific policy changes to address the cause of the financial instability. Broad financial service reform, especially of commercial banking, has become a favorite IMF policy prescription. Typically, this includes writing off bad loans, closing bankrupt institutions, and improving oversight of banking practices. Would that the IMF followed its own advice. Instead of restricting or denying credit to countries with a record of resisting economic reform, the IMF eagerly enters into loan after loan. The most recent and glaring example of this practice is Russia. Despite over $27 billion in IMF credits since 1992, the Russian government has been unwilling or unable to reform the economy. It has defaulted on much of its debt. It has even admitted that as much as $50 billion in Central Bank reserves, including IMF loan proceeds, was siphoned off for questionable purposes with the cooperation of Russian officials. Yet the IMF continues to serve as Russia's banker. A preliminary agreement was reached on March 29 between IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus and Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov to provide $4.8 billion in new loans to Russia in 1999. Not so coincidentally, this is almost exactly the amount that Russia owes the IMF in 1999 for past loans. The IMF proposal to lend additional funds to Russia, despite its defaults, is simply bad banking practice. It is not unlike a banker's lending to a friend who subsequently defaults on the loan. Then, perhaps out of friendship or a desire to conceal the error in making the original loan, the banker lends additional funds to enable the friend to keep current on the first loan. Whatever the motivation, the banker is perpetrating an accounting fraud that likely will land him in deep trouble. Bank examiners could compel him to write down the value of the loan and take a charge against earnings for the portion of the loans not recoverable. The entire loan might have to be written off. Additionally, the bank could be cited for bad banking practices and the banker cited individually for his actions. The IMF, by contrast, is rewarded with ever-greater funds to cover its errors. Russia is only the most recent example of decades of poor banking practice on the part of the IMF. Another is Peru, which entered into 17 different arrangements with the IMF between 1971 and 1977 despite repeated failure to meet many of the reform conditions that accompanied the loans. In effect, these IMF loans financed the destructive economic policies that made Peru less able to repay its debt. A third example is the $3.4 billion IMF loan to Mexico only one year after that country had initiated the 1982 Latin American debt crisis by defaulting on its debt. Conclusion Despite the IMF's vocal support for sound banking principles, its actions tell a different story. The IMF exports poor banking practice by example. It damages the international financial system when it continues to lend to countries like Russia, a financial black hole. In an October 1998 statement, the IMF noted that "Markets do not operate well when...transparency and accountability are lacking, and market participants do not operate under an internationally accepted set of principles or standards." The world economy will continue to suffer so long as IMF actions fail to match IMF rhetoric. Gerald P. O'Driscoll, Jr., Ph.D., is Senior Fellow in Economic Policy, and Brett D. Schaefer is Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs, in The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis International Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation. |
and despite the U.S. giving 20 billion in aid we actually hurt/ have hurt mexico by two ways:
1) taking oil as collateral
2) "The passing of the U.S.-backed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 was the catalyst for this maquila boom. Annual earnings of the maquiladoras currently exceed $200 billion dollars, and make up 85% of the trade revenue generated between Mexico and the U.S. (pbs.org)" In case you didn't know, Maquiladora is a term used to describe foreign-owned assembly plants operated along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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| PBS.org The maquila workers do not share the wealth accrued by these corporations. An average work week lasts 60-70 hours, and wages are estimated at $5.75 for a full day's work. It is estimated that it takes a maquiladora worker 4 hours and 17 minutes of labor to buy a gallon of milk. |
i love how there's 744,000 homeless in the US but Georgey boy believes more troops needed in Iraq. Time the US looked within its own borders to sort out some of their own issues rather than other interests outside of their country.
Christos, I'll take it a step further:
There are probably more homeless in the US than there are coalition forces in Iraq.
And if I see another one of those "I support our troops" banners, ribbons or other Made in China things again I would point out that factoid about the homeless.
Just me two cents.
Just curious ... but how many of these homeless are immigrants? I mean, I literally live below the poverty line here in Canada, even before I got to college in September, but I am not homeless.
If you're Canadian, then picture this: my income for the last 3 years before September since my parents kicked me out was about 11,000 dollars a year. Then I pay about 4500 in rent. Then bills, food, transportation (bus), etc. etc. And I bought myself a new computer. You know, its all about managing money well.
Homelessness happens. So when it does it's too late to say how you could have managed your budget that would have kept you from winding up on the street.
Besides if there were homeless immigrants does it matter?
How about homeless veterans of war? No one thinks about those that fought for the country and now live on the street.
It's all fun and games until you wind up without a home or a penny.
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| Originally posted by ogvh5150 How about homeless veterans of war? No one thinks about those that fought for the country and now live on the street. |
I think it should be a government obligation to help the veterans come off the street, and disabled, sick people who lost homes because of health, disability and such.
BTW, immigrants don't come to live on a street. They come for better living and work hard. For most part, especially here in Canada. Just like my parents. Its the average Canadian citizens who are mostly on welfare(actually, I make about as much if not a bit less than welfare people, haha). Its a stupid system. People dont appreciate what they have.
Here Toronto is famous for having a horde of homeless people. Some refuse to leave the streets, and don't want to get a job - just money. I am not speaking for all homeless people, but through friends I for sure heard of several homeless people like that. And I have never ever heard of an immigrant homeless person.
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