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Teen creates initiative to provide glasses to unhoused

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Parkes Long is on a mission to ensure that unhoused individuals have access to free eye care and prescription glasses.

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Ending homelessness is deeply connected to climate justice. When natural disasters strike, people with the fewest resources are most likely to be impacted and left without a place to live for the foreseeable future.

Without immediate action to mitigate the impacts of climate change, more displacement, increased harm, and loss of life will disproportionately impact marginalized communities, communities of color, and people living in poverty - and will therefore result in increased homelessness.

Climate Change Is Happening

During the Industrial Revolution, human activity began to impact the environment in a significant way. Since then, society has only increased the burning of fossil fuels and changing large areas of forests to create more space for agriculture. These actions create emissions that remain trapped in the Earth's atmosphere, holding the sun's heat and increasing temperatures across the globe. Increased temperatures and the destruction of forests lead to an increased chance of drought, more severe fires, water scarcity, melting ice caps, sea level rise, higher likelihoods of flooding, and decreased biodiversity. These disasters already result in countless deaths each year, but they will always impact those most vulnerable to harm, whether internationally or in the United States.

Disproportionate Impact

When people have fewer resources accessible to them, they are less prepared to weather significant shifts or natural disasters due to climate change. However, historical and current policies result in marginalized communities facing the largest impacts of disaster, particularly people of color. One example is redlining, a systemic practice of excluding people of color from certain neighborhoods. Redlined communities have proven to be at a higher risk for flooding than non-redlined areas, which can result in significantly decreased home values, loss of possessions during a flood, and even a loss of a home if flooding becomes severe. People of color, especially Black Americans, are still more likely to live in these redlined communities than White Americans. Other climate disasters, such as fires or extreme weather, can also leave people without homes and limited resources for help. Climate justice work means protecting people in poor and marginalized communities from having to experience these crises and become homeless.

Current Crisis for People Experiencing Homelessness

For people currently experiencing homelessness, climate change is an ever-present emergency. Extreme weather conditions such as winter storms or severe heat have an obvious impact on unsheltered homelessness: for people already living outdoors, extreme weather can mean life or death. Older adults, people with substance use disorders, and those experiencing chronic homelessness are also at a higher risk of adverse health effects from extreme temperatures. These weather conditions result in chronic medical concerns, a higher risk of hypothermia, and a higher mortality rate. People experiencing homelessness need policymakers to act now to reduce the impact of climate crises and slow the rate of climate change through policy and preparation. If not, these already-vulnerable people will be at increased risk of death.

The Emergency is Now

During a natural disaster, the homelessness field, emergency response teams, and communities jump into action to care for the people most impacted. This response often involves creating emergency shelters for people who have lost their homes or been displaced, providing medical care for those harmed, and delivering supplies directly to locations most impacted. Rebuilding efforts often follow, although they have historically failed to reach all people living in poverty and communities of color.

However, homelessness itself should be treated as an emergency, even in the absence of a natural disaster. More people are likely to experience homelessness and displacement due to climate change, and the way they experience homelessness will be less safe if it is not treated like the true emergency it is. Emergency shelters and increased housing development should be funded year-round, not only as a result of a catastrophe. If we continue to do nothing to slow climate change or alter homelessness response in the face of this reality, the impacts will only get worse, especially for those most vulnerable.

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Without immediate action to mitigate the impacts of climate change, more displacement, increased harm, and loss of life will disproportionately impact marginalized communities, communities of color, and people living in poverty - and will therefore result in increased homelessness. Climate [...]

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Homeless people in Hawaii will be getting help and new shelters

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Help is on the way for Hawaii's increasing homeless population.

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Homeless on “Sesame Street”: show tackles a problem affecting millions

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“Sesame Street” has a video that tries to alleviate the stigma around homelessness. Lily, a pink puppet, tells Elmo her family has no place to live. Elmo tells Lily her friends will always help her.

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13-year-old Donovan Smith has a business, big dreams and a big heart

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Formerly homeless teen now helping others.

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Parents and Kids Talk About Homelessness

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Parents and Kids Talk About Homelessness

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Parents and Kids Talk About Homelessness

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Introduction
Few social problems are as visible as the plight of the homeless. Once an invisible people who could easily be ignored, the homeless are now a common sight in cities, suburbs, and even some rural areas. There are men who roam the streets carrying what is left of their possessions in shopping bags or grocery carts. There are women curled up on benches, in stairwells, or under bridges. There are families, typically mothers and children, scrounging for food and shelter. Homelessness takes many forms, but most homeless people have one thing in common: poverty.

Scope and Causes
Homelessness exists in every country of the world. Because of a lack of reliable statistics, it is impossible to measure homelessness with great accuracy. The United Nations (UN) has estimated that 100 million people worldwide do not have a permanent place to live. In the United States, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issues a report on homelessness each year. In 2017 HUD found that 554,000 people were homeless on a single night that year. This figure does not give a complete picture, however, because the homeless population is constantly shifting. The number of people who experience homelessness at some point over the course of a year is much higher than the single-night figure. In 2015, for example, HUD found that nearly 1.5 million Americans were homeless for at least part of the year.

Homelessness has a number of causes, many of which are closely related. One major cause is a lack of affordable housing. Some people cannot afford rent or mortgage payments because they are unemployed. They may be unable to find work because of a struggling economy or because of physical or mental illness. The loss of a job can cause some families to join the ranks of the homeless for a period of days or weeks. Once another job is found, the family can usually afford shelter once more. Other homeless people have jobs but do not make enough to pay for housing, sometimes because the cost of living in their neighborhood has risen. People may also slip into homelessness after living through war, a natural disaster, or a personal hardship, such as domestic abuse.

Homelessness in the United States
The 2017 HUD report found that more than half of the homeless in the United States lived in one of five states: California, New York, Florida, Texas, or Washington. They were concentrated in urban areas, particularly in the largest cities. New York City and Los Angeles alone accounted for almost one-fourth of the country's homeless.

The HUD report described the homeless as either sheltered or unsheltered. Sheltered homeless spend the night in emergency shelters or in transitional, or temporary, housing. Unsheltered homeless sleep on the streets, in cars, in abandoned buildings, or in other places not meant for sleeping. The report found that about two-thirds of the homeless in the United States were sheltered and the rest were unsheltered.

About two-thirds of the homeless in 2017 were individuals living alone. The other third were people in families with children. Six out of 10 homeless people were male. About two out of 10 were children. Some groups experience homelessness at much higher rates than others. For example, 41 percent of the homeless in 2017 were African Americans, though they made up only 13 percent of the country's population overall. In addition, adults with disabilities are more than three times more likely to be homeless than adults without disabilities. Veterans have also suffered high rates of homelessness.

Helping the Homeless
The United Nations has defined access to housing as a human right. Therefore, it considers homelessness to be a human rights violation caused by unjust inequalities in income and wealth. The UN has called on governments throughout the world to do more to combat the problem.

Government responses to homelessness have varied. England passed a law in 1977 that required local authorities to house the homeless. However, the Homeless Persons Act promised assistance only to the homeless who were considered a "priority." This meant that homeless families with children often received help while homeless individuals were turned away. A new law passed in 2017 required local councils to house all of the homeless regardless of their priority status.

In the United States, the first major law to address homelessness was the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987. It provided basic services for the homeless, with an emphasis on emergency services. By the early 2000s the government focused more on finding transitional or permanent housing for the homeless. It also funded programs aimed at preventing homelessness among youth. In addition to federal efforts, local governments and private groups have played a vital role in funding and running programs to help the homeless.

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Few social problems are as visible as the plight of the homeless. Once an invisible people who could easily be ignored, the homeless are now a common sight in cities,...

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Santa Monica Services:  Safe Place for Youth

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Santa Monica Services:  Safe Place for Youth

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Santa Monica Daily Press - Santa Monica's trusted source of essential news for 23 years

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Santa Monica services: Safe place for youth - Santa Monica Daily Press

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In Santa Monica, homelessness is no longer just a problem, but a city-declared local emergency. While Santa Monica witnessed a 6% decrease in homelessness over the past year (according to LAHSA’s annual count), there was a dramatic 15% increase from 2022 to 2023. Moreover, California accounts for 28% of the nation’s unhoused population, which is

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Climate Change is Making Homelessness Worse

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Climate Change is Making Homelessness Worse

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Climate change is making homelessness worse 

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The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a nonpartisan organization committed to preventing and ending homelessness in the United States.

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Today, the City of Santa Monica released the results of the 2022 Homeless Count held in February. Santa Monica’s results show 807 people experiencing homelessness were counted in Santa Monica, a decrease of 11 percent from the 907 individuals counted in January 2020. While this decrease is primarily due to local shelter capacity being significantly reduced to comply with COVID-19 public health guidance, the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Santa Monica stayed nearly consistent with 2020, increasing 1 percent to 608 in 2022. The City’s continued focus on permanent solutions combined with responding to immediate public health and quality-of-life issues and the expanded availability of regional interim shelter beds have helped prevent a local increase in homelessness.

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Homeless Public School Students - Kidsdata.org

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Kidsdata.org promotes the health and well being of children in California by providing an easy to use resource that offers high-quality, wide-ranging, local data to those who work on behalf of children.

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Environmental Impacts of Homeless Encampments in the Guadalupe River Area

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Environmental Impacts of Homeless Encampments in the Guadalupe River Area

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Environmental Impacts of Homeless Encampments in the Guadalupe River Area

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Check the Achieve3000 articles assigned on Achieve 3000

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Check the Achieve3000 articles assigned on Achieve 3000