Facts About Homelessness

For many Americans, the word "homeless" evokes a snapshot of a transient individual. In fact, the picture of homelessness in America today is a family portrait: children and families make up the fastest growing segment of the homeless population.

  Did You Know?

•   The typical homeless person in America is a child

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•   Children and families make up the fastest growing segment of the homeless population.

 
•  There are 6,000 families living in the New York City shelter system. Ten times that number are one step away from homelessness.

 
•   The typical homeless family is a single, 20-year-old mother with two children under the age of six.

 
•   Over one-third of homeless families have an open case for child abuse or neglect; one out of five have lost at least one child to foster care.

 
•   Nearly half of homeless children either have witnessed or have been subjected to violence in their home.

 
•   Over half of all homeless children have never lived in their own home. Over forty percent have been homeless more than once.

The typical homeless family of the 1990s consists of an unmarried 20-year-old mother with one or two children under the age of 6, probably fathered by different men. In all likelihood this young mother never completed high school and never worked to support her family. There is a one in five chance that she was in foster care as a child; if so, she is more than twice as likely as other homeless mothers to have an open case of child abuse or neglect with a child welfare agency. Her children are three times more likely than non-homeless children to be placed in remedial education programs, and four times more likely to drop out of school. If this happens, chances are they will continue the cycle of poverty and homelessness when they grow up.

Homelessness today, then, is not a housing issue; it is an education issue, a children's issue, and a family issue.

Attempts to break the cycle that do not address these facts are destined to fail.
 

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