Here's What People -- Including Trump -- Get Wrong About Homelessness

[Newest Reality]

Fact: Homelessness is a serious problem nationwide.

Affordable housing is a crisis across the country, and more than 500,000 people were homeless in the U.S. on a given night in January 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. While there’s been a decline in the number of homeless Americans over the last decade, last year saw the first increase in recent years, per the HUD report.

California is one of the states with the worst rates of homelessness, and over the past couple years, homelessness has spiked in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles.

To address the issue, advocates and experts have long called for more government investment in affordable housing and support services for homeless and housing-insecure people.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/myths-stereotypes-homeless-trump-california_n_5d851225e4b070d468cc550c

[dlk]

1. Rock bottom wages coupled with sky high housing costs create homelessness

This part of the issue is often overlooked.

[Newest Reality]

2. Yes.

Stereo-typing is certainly not a way to approach this and many people are getting the wrong picture.

Not all homeless people are in that predicament because of addiction or mental illness. Those factors can come into play after the fact.

I know from experience that once you are homeless, getting back into housing is a major feat and often more about luck rather than ability and opportunity.

Not only do you have no rental record for x amount of time, (as per applications) but, let's say the rent is $1,000 per month, (it is often more). With the first month, last month PLUS the security deposit that many landlords want, getting an apartment can cost $3,000 or more for that rent. For a $1,500 apartment, that's $4,500. How can the low-wage working poor do that?

So, it is a multi-faceted and growing problem and a new, major factor will be growing numbers of seniors going homeless now that 10,000 of them are reaching 65 per day in this country and around half of them have no assets whatsoever.