Basic Homelessness

There is a lot of misinformation about homelessness, and homeless people, in the United States. So, again, let me share with you some facts.

There are some very distinct differences between types of homeless people. The biggest difference is between chronically homeless people and non-chronically homeless people.

The overwhelming majority of homeless people fall into the non-chronically homeless category. Most non-chronically homeless people have at the root cause of their homelessness financial mismanagment. Most people who become homeless only experience homelessness once in their life time. The average homeless experience lasts between 3 and 4 months.

The vast majority of homeless people do not panhandle. And not all panhandlers are homeless. So, it is wrong to link panhandling to homelessness as a cause of panhandling. It would be much more accurate to link drug and alcohol abuse to a cause for panhandling.

Sadly, most people do not make any distinctions between homeless types. And so all homeless people are treated the same. Because of this all people who are homeless are forced to live together. People who have no problems other than financial, and the drug addicts, and the severally mentally ill, etc, must live side by side while they try to recover. The problems created by this dynamic are many. These different types of homelessness require drastically different types of help for their problems. And for the general underfunding of shelters, it is near impossible for such facilities to properly address all the different needs of the homeless. And for this, rarely does a homeless person get help for his specific issues. Rescue misssions and the like resort to only providing the basics of food shelter and clothing. And some, if funded, will provide basic education, like for GED qualification or very basic computer skills. Still, these basic education classes do nothing to address the actual problems homeless people face when trying to recouperate.

At rescue missions, an emphasis is placed on Christian religion as a means to recovery. Which on the surface seems like a good idea. The problem with this always stems from the staff and chaplains of rescue missions having a very poor understanding of Christianity. And so what is taught and preached at rescue missions is a rather distorted and thus unproductive version of the religion.