Some Reasons for Homelessness: Part Two

People in America seem to have very little empathy for homeless people. They seem to see homelessness as something the homeless person is responsible for, something they chose through their own bad decisions and laziness. They also see homelessness as something that they and all good, moral people are immune to.

I want to present a few reasons actual people become homeless in a series of articles, reasons often beyond their control or ability to deal with. By doing so, I hope to increase empathy towards homeless people.

Lack of a Living Wage

Many people are surprised to hear it but anywhere from one third to one half of homeless adults are working at any given time. Most homeless people work at low-paying jobs or receive insufficient work hours. Even if they band together with several other homeless people, their combined income may not be enough to cover security deposit and first and last month's rent on an apartment or to keep up with rent and utilities if they already have an apartment.

The problem is that the bills homeless people have outweigh their income for various reasons. Sometimes it is the cost of living but often it's financial responsibilities like child support or defaulted student loans. In some divorce judgments, the non-custodial parent must pay for insurance for the dependent children at a rate of several hundred to over a thousand dollars per month. Such a judgment can be the different between being homeless or homed.

Sexual, Physical, and Emotional Abuse

Homeless women often flee an abusive spouse sometimes finding themselves homeless, especially if that spouse was financially abusive and practiced isolation (separation from family and friends via distance or withdrawal from social circles) to control a partner. Sometimes these women don't have access to funds, often even their own earnings, or they were not allowed to work outside the home, a common abusive controlling tactic. Due to the isolation aspect of their controlling partner, they find themselves without a social support structure or extended family to call on for help and become homeless.

Abused teens are often unaware of the help available to them and can become homeless when trying to exit an abusive situation on their own. This is fairly common because their exit comes with a great deal of turmoil, often caused by some "last straw" bit of abuse (a particularly bad beating, death threats, beginning sexual abuse of a younger sibling, etc.) that spurs the child into running and homelessness. Abused children are also sometimes abandoned by parents or expelled from the home.

Physical Illness or Injury

A lot of people think they are covered by their insurance if they become sick or get injured. A lot of people are wrong. Many people are shocked to discover their insurance will not cover their medical care or that their insurance has caps on medical care. They are also surprised to discover that they can lose their coverage due to illness or injury.

People also lose their jobs due to illness or injury, for multiple reasons. Employers are often unwilling to accommodate an employee through recovery and even after recovery will often cut that employee's hours down to part-time. Too many absences from work or an inability (even temporary) to perform work tasks as usual will result in loss of employment. Loss of employment can result in homelessness, especially when combined with past due bills.

And after the patient is fully recovered, he now has a gap in employment which prospective new employers will not find attractive. Not only that, but his previous medical history may affect whatever insurance plan a business may have, raising rates for everyone - another mark against him.

On top of those marks against him, many prospective employers now check credit ratings before hiring. A bad credit rating caused by unpaid or late bills, medical or otherwise, will disqualify applicants automatically. Medical bankruptcy is a sure-fire way to ruin a credit rating.

Not only are jobs at stake but savings can be quickly eaten up by medical expenses and hospital stays even if the person in question has insurance that doesn't drop him due to illness. Insurance companies have caps on how much and what they will cover which many clients are unaware of. The caps may also seem high enough in the insurance handbook but quickly gets surpassed in the hospital.

Without a strong family and friend support structure, medical problems could leave just about anyone homeless.

You can find part one at Some Reasons for Homelessness: Part One.

Sources:
Personal experience working with homeless people
http://www.squidoo.com/Reasons_for_Homelessness