Reuters reports that 20% of the homeless in the United States are veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Homelessness in the United States increased significantly in the late 1970s and became an important political topic.[1] The number of homeless people further grew in the 1980s, as housing and social service cuts increased and the economy deteriorated. The United States government determined that somewhere between 200, 000 and 500, 000 Americans were then homeless.[2] The number of homeless is reported to have risen since that time.

Over the past decade, the availability and quality of data on homelessness has improved considerably, due in part to initiatives by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and several nongovernmental organizations working with homeless populations. Improved data collection has led to a more accurate and complete understanding of the nature of homelessness in the UK.

According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 643, 067 sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons nationwide on a single night in January 2008. Additionally, about 1.6 million persons used an emergency shelter or a transitional housing program during the 12-month period between October 1, 2007 and September 30, 2008. This number suggests that roughly 1 in every 200 persons in the US used the shelter system at some point in that period.[3]

According to the United States Conference of Mayors, [4] the main cause is the lack of affordable housing. According to Stephen Baskerville PHD and author of book Taken Into Custody. This book outlines how homelessness is caused by government policy, and propaganda designed to create revenue by portraying unmarried noncustodial parents as dead beats and by making these people destitute.


The four next primary causes are:

mental illness or the lack of needed services,
substance abuse and lack of needed services.
low-paying jobs.
Government policy - Child support enforcement keeping drivers licenses from citizens and other civil rights violations.
The minor causes cited by the mayors were:

Prisoner release.
Unemployment.
Domestic violence.
Poverty.

Carla (RANN) Staff
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