Number of Homeless Families Climbing Fast Due to Recession
By. Social Media Intern
Many of homeless families originally come from the class of "working poor." Their household depends on each paycheck from single parent's work, which for often times pays just enough to be above a minimal wage line. Once dad or mom, or even worse both parents, loses the job, the familiy is on streets just like that.
"Goldman Sachs projects that the unemployment rate will rise to 9 percent by the fourth quarter of 2009 and continue rising into 2010. If unemployment reaches 9 percent and the increase in poverty, relative to the increase in the unemployment rate, is within the range that occurred in the last three recessions, the number of poor Americans will rise by 7.5 – 10.3 million. Moreover, the number of people in “deep poverty” — with incomes below half of the poverty line — will rise by an estimated 4.5 – 6.3 million if unemployment reaches 9 percent. This would represent an increase of about 900,000 – 1.1 million families with children that fall into deep poverty and thus are at risk of housing instability and homelessness."
Imgaine 1 million families gathered in one place. Not easy picturing what it will look like? Then picture Philadelphia, a city built for population of a million, with lack of housing, job, school, and public transportation troubling every citizen. Yeap. That's what this economic turn down is doing to today's already fastest growing percentage of homeless population.
This doens't mean that we need to create a whole new industry or anything. Rather it reminds us of how important it is for the government and each community should be aware of the new face of homelessness, alert to reach out for people experiencing episodic homelessness, and awake to consistently try to provide the general public with more affordable housing, stable employment, and reasonable health care.
[1]Sharon Parrott, “Recession Could Cause Large Increases in Poverty and Push Millions Into Deep Poverty,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, November 24, 2008, http://www.cbpp.org/11-24-08pov.htm. This analysis found that if the unemployment rate increases to 9 percent by the fourth quarter of 2009, between 1.5 million and 2 million additional children will fall into deep poverty, based on the increases in poverty rates in recent recessions. Repeating the analysis for families with children (as distinguished from children themselves) indicates that 900,000 to 1.1 million such families would fall into deep poverty.
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