Friday, March 09, 2007
US grapples with homeless problem - BBC News
Martin Walker was working for a law firm when he was injured in a car accident.
He had to take time off work for therapy, during which time, he says, he was fired.
"After I lost my job, I got behind on my bills and my rent. And that's how I became homeless," he says.
That was more than two years ago. Since then, he has held some regular jobs, and works between jobs as a vendor for Street Sense, a Washington DC newspaper designed to help the homeless.
But he has never managed to save enough to get himself a home. He spends most nights in shelters.
"Fortunately, I have had to sleep outside only a small number of times. Some people prefer it, but it's pretty dangerous sleeping outside," he says.
Indeed, a new report from the National Coalition for the Homeless says that 2006 saw the largest number of attacks - by far - of any year since the group began keeping records in 1999.
Twenty people were killed in the 142 violent crimes against homeless people, the group found.
A separate US government study claiming to be the most comprehensive ever found that 704,000 Americans were without shelter for at least one night between February and April 2005.
Some 754,000 "are living in emergency shelter, transitional housing, and on the streets on any given night", the study found.
Families with children made up one-third of the homeless people in the large study.
One in four was disabled. Nearly half were black - in a country where just over one in 10 people is black.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which carried out the study, counted only those actively seeking shelter, not people sleeping rough, so the total number of homeless Americans is almost certain to be higher. ...
Martin Walker was working for a law firm when he was injured in a car accident.
He had to take time off work for therapy, during which time, he says, he was fired.
"After I lost my job, I got behind on my bills and my rent. And that's how I became homeless," he says.
That was more than two years ago. Since then, he has held some regular jobs, and works between jobs as a vendor for Street Sense, a Washington DC newspaper designed to help the homeless.
But he has never managed to save enough to get himself a home. He spends most nights in shelters.
"Fortunately, I have had to sleep outside only a small number of times. Some people prefer it, but it's pretty dangerous sleeping outside," he says.
Indeed, a new report from the National Coalition for the Homeless says that 2006 saw the largest number of attacks - by far - of any year since the group began keeping records in 1999.
Twenty people were killed in the 142 violent crimes against homeless people, the group found.
A separate US government study claiming to be the most comprehensive ever found that 704,000 Americans were without shelter for at least one night between February and April 2005.
Some 754,000 "are living in emergency shelter, transitional housing, and on the streets on any given night", the study found.
Families with children made up one-third of the homeless people in the large study.
One in four was disabled. Nearly half were black - in a country where just over one in 10 people is black.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which carried out the study, counted only those actively seeking shelter, not people sleeping rough, so the total number of homeless Americans is almost certain to be higher. ...
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