Blacks and Homelessness

Homelessness in the United States is addressed by United States Department of Housing and Urban Development which promulgates best practices and definitions which are highly influential. HUD defines homeless as pertinent to an individual who lacks 1.an individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and 2.an individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is - A.a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill); B.an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or C.a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings.
Major reasons and causes for homelessness as documented by many reports and studies include:
* Unavailability of employment opportunities.
* Poverty, caused by many factors including unemployment and underemployment.
* Lack of accessible healthcare. People who have some kind of chronic and weakening disease but cannot get healthcare either because they don't have money to afford it or because the government will not give it to them are simply too weak to go and work every day so they remain poor and homeless.
* Abuse by government or by other people with power.
* War or armed conflict.
* Mental disorder, where mental health services are unavailable or difficult to access or as a result of deinstitutionalization. A United States Federal survey done in 2005 indicated that at least one-third of homeless men and women have serious psychiatric disorders or problems.
* Disability, especially where disability services are nonexistent or poor performing.
* Substance abuse
* Lack of affordable housing. An article in the November 2007 issue of Atlantic Monthly reported on a study of the cost of obtaining the "right to build" (i.e. a building permit, red tape, bureaucracy, etc.) in different U.S. cities. The "right to build" cost does not include the cost of the land or the cost of constructing the house. The study was conducted by Harvard economists Edward Glaeser and Kristina Tobio. According to the chart accompanying the article, the cost of obtaining the "right to build" adds approximately $600,000 to the cost of each new house that is built in San Francisco.
* Domestic violence.
* Relationship breakdown, particularly in relation to young people and their parents.
* Prison release and re-entry into society.
* Natural disaster, including but not limited to earthquakes and hurricanes.
* Forced eviction – In many countries, people lose their homes by government order to make way for newer upscale high rise buildings, roadways, and other governmental needs. The compensation may be minimal, in which case the former occupants cannot find appropriate new housing and become homeless.
* Mortgage foreclosures where mortgage holders see the best solution to a loan default is to take and sell the house to pay off the debt. The popular press made an issue of this in 2008; the real magnitude of the problem is undocumented.
* Foreclosures on landlords often lead to eviction of their tenants. "The Sarasota, Florida, Herald Tribune noted that,by some estimates, more than 311,000 tenants nationwide have been evicted from homes this year after lenders took over the properties." A substantial percentage of the U.S. homeless population are individuals who are chronically unemployed or have difficulty managing their lives effectively due to prolonged and severe drug and/or alcohol abuse. Substance abuse can cause homelessness from behavioral patterns associated with addiction that alienate an addicted individual's family and friends who could otherwise provide support during difficult economic times.Increased wealth disparity and income inequality causes distortions in the housing market that push rent burdens higher, making housing unaffordable. Dr. Paul Koegel of RAND Corporation, a seminal researcher in first generation homelessness studies and beyond, divided the causes of homelessness into structural aspects and then individual vulnerabilities.