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Why Are People Homeless?

People become homeless for a variety of reasons. Typically a combination of factors contributes to a person or family becoming homeless. A shortage of affordable housing combined with personal vulnerabilities and lack of strong family or social supports can result in crisis. Homelessness is not usually a “choice” for the majority of people but more often a feeling of a lack of choices or hope for a better situation.

Two trends are largely responsible for the rise in homelessness in the United States and Indianapolis over the past 15-20 years: a growing shortage of affordable rental housing and a simultaneous increase in poverty. Reasons people are homeless include:

* Poverty: Homeless people are frequently from poverty households. They have limited education and low employment skills. They are unable to pay for housing, food, child care, health care and education. Difficult choices must be made when limited resources cover only some of these necessities.
* Housing: The status of housing for low-income people in the United States is grim. A lack of affordable housing and the inadequacy of housing assistance programs have contributed to the current housing crisis and to homelessness. 54,400 households in Indianapolis spend over half their income on housing costs.
* Lack of Affordable Health Care: For families and individuals struggling to pay the rent, a serious illness or disability can start a downward spiral into homelessness, beginning with a lost job, depletion of savings to pay for care, and eventual eviction.
* Domestic Violence: Battered women who live in poverty are often forced to choose between abusive relationships and homelessness. An estimated of 25%of homeless people in Indianapolis are victims of domestic violence.
* Mental Illness: Approximately 30% of the single adult homeless population suffer from some form of severe and persistent mental illness (Koegel et al, 1996).
* Chemical Dependency: Many people who are addicted to alcohol and drugs never become homeless; but people who are poor and addicted are clearly at an increased risk of homelessness.
* AIDS and Other Related Diseases: These affect a small but growing portion of the homeless. The special counts conducted in 1990 and 1993 by Midtown Mental health Center’s Homeless Medical Team found that 5% of the homeless on any given night suffered from AIDS or related diseases.

Source: The Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention of Greater Indianapolis, Inc., January 19, 2005