# data[].attributes.body
https://www.fourwindsfoundation.co.nz/

# data[].attributes.body
https://womensrefuge.org.nz/

# data[].attributes.body
https://rednoseday.co.nz/

# data[].attributes.body
St john charity       S M

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
St John New Zealand is a dynamic charitable organisation that provides ambulance services, first aid training, event medical services and care-based community programmes

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.shelter.org.uk/

# data[].attributes.body
redcross

# data[].attributes.body
http://www.hospice.org.nz/

# data[].attributes.body
M S

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Around the world, 767 million people live in extreme poverty with less than $1.90 per person per day, an amount which is impossible to support a healthy livelihood in any part of the world.

Poverty Leads to Hunger

One in three children in low- and middle-income countries suffers from chronic undernutrition. Without a sustainable source of income at a sufficient level, young children and their families do not have access to nutritious food, clean water or health care. And the deadly effects of undernutrition cannot be underestimated:

45% of all child deaths worldwide are from causes related to undernutrition, or 3.1 million children a year.

At Action Against Hunger, we believe that no child should die from hunger. We help over 14.9 million people every year gain access to sustainable sources of income, clean water, nutritious food, and health care, but there is still so much to be done.

Global Poverty Facts

Here are some statistics that show the scale of global poverty and its devastating effects.

1) 767 million people, or 10.7 percent of the population, live in extreme poverty with less than $1.90 per day.

2) 2.1 billion people live on less than $3.10 per day.

3) 328 million children are living in extreme poverty.

4) At least 17 million children suffer from severe acute undernutrition around the world. Severe acute malnutrition is the direct cause of death for 1 million children every year.

5)Every single day, 1,000 children under 5 die from illnesses like diarrhoea, dysentery, and cholera caused by contaminated water and inadequate sanitation.

Stats 1-3: World Bank, 4-5: UNICEF

Where is extreme poverty?

Africa is the continent with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty. See below for a breakdown of where people living with less than $1.90 per day are located.

383 Million in Africa

327 Million in Asia

19 Million in South America

13 Million in North America

2.5 Million in Oceania

0.7 Million in Europe

Children living in extreme poverty

It is estimated that 104 million children under 5 are living in extreme poverty, while that number extends to 328 million for children under 18 (World Bank, 2016).

Children suffer the most when living in poverty. Their young, developing bodies are less resilient to the effects of living without clean water, food or health care. As a result, many children living in poverty suffer from malnutrition and disease. If left untreated-which is common due to limited access to health care-they cannot survive. It is estimated that only 10% of children suffering for severe acute acute malnutrition receive treatment.

Watch the story of 13-year-old Keynyang, a brave young boy trying to support his family after conflict forced them to flee their home in South Sudan. With no money or food, his family is trying to survive by eating leaves.

Keynyang's story demonstrates that extreme poverty is often the result of external factors that are far beyond the family's control. However, with the right support, there is hope. We have over 35 years of experience of saving lives and supporting self-sufficiency for some of the world's most vulnerable populations. We are able to help communities become more resilient to external factors that cause extreme poverty, and help families recover from natural disasters or forced displacement.

Solutions to Poverty and Hunger

Hunger and undernutrition are often linked to extreme poverty and lack of access to available, sufficient, nutritious food.

Action Against Hunger's food security and livelihoods programs aim to empower vulnerable communities to improve their access to food, income, and markets. We train and build the capacity of small-scale farmers to increase production, and safely store and market their crops.

In humanitarian emergencies, we provide cash transfers or cash-for-work programs to help families in crisis buy food and support local markets while also enabling them to make their own choices about their most urgent needs.

Every year we reach 14.7 million people with lifesaving programs in 50 countries.

We are there for children and families before and after disaster strikes. We enable people to provide for themselves, see their children grow up strong, and for whole communities to prosper. We constantly search for more effective solutions, while sharing our knowledge and expertise with the world. We push for long-term change. We will never give up. Until the world is free from hunger.

Take Action!
You can have a direct impact on children living in poverty and facing the devastating effects of hunger.
Our expert teams can restore a young child suffering from severe acute malnutrition to full health in just 45 days. The lifesaving treatment costs just $1 per day using therapeutic foods. That means we can save a child's life for just $45.

Investing in nutrition is an extremely affordable and highly effective way to have a lasting impact on the lives of people around the world.

Your lifesaving donation will also help us work with their families to build sustainable income and provide access to clean water, nutritious food and healthcare so their children can grow up healthy and strong.

Where your money goes

Over 93 cents of every dollar donated goes directly to those in desperate need-an efficiency rating that is held by very few organizations.

We're top rated

You can trust Action Against Hunger. Here's why:

Highest four-star rating from Charity Navigator, ten years in a row

Listed as an "A" rated organization by CharityWatch

We're accountable, meeting all 20 Better Business Bureau standards

Earned Guidestar's Gold Participant Seal for our commitment to transparency

Awarded the "Best in America" seal by the Independent Charities of America

Learn more about how we save lives:

About Action Against Hunger

Action Against Hunger is a global humanitarian organization that takes decisive action against the causes and effects of hunger. We save the lives of malnourished children. We ensure families can access clean water, food, training, and health care. We enable entire communities to be free from hunger. With more than 6,500 staff in over 45 countries, our programs reach 14.9 million people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Around the world, 767 million people live in extreme poverty with less than $1.90 per person per day, an amount which is impossible to support a healthy livelihood in any part of the world. Poverty Leads to Hunger One in three children in low- and middle-income countries suffers from chronic undernutrition.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Homelessness or houselessness - also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered - is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. The general category includes disparate situations, including:

living on the streets, also known as sleeping rough (primary homelessness)

moving between temporary shelters, including houses of friends, family, and emergency accommodation (secondary homelessness)

living in boarding houses without a private bathroom or security of tenure (tertiary homelessness)

not having access to permanent or secure housing[vague ]

internally displaced persons, who leave their domiciles because of civil conflict and are refugees within their country's borders

The legal status of homeless people varies from place to place. United States government homeless enumeration studies also include people who sleep in a public or private place, which is not designed for use as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. Homelessness and poverty are interrelated. There is no methodological consensus on counting homeless people and identifying their needs; therefore, in most cities, only estimated homeless populations are known.

In 2005, an estimated 100 million people worldwide were homeless, and as many as one billion people (one in 6.5 at the time) live as squatters, refugees, or in temporary shelters.

In 2009, at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Conference of European Statisticians (CES), the Group of Experts on Population and Housing Censuses defined homelessness as:

In its Recommendations for the Censuses of Population and Housing, the CES identifies homeless people under two broad groups:

1. Primary homelessness (or rooflessness). This category includes persons living in the streets without a shelter that would fall within the scope of living quarters

2. Secondary homelessness. This category may include persons with no place of usual residence who move frequently between various types of accommodations (including dwellings, shelters, and institutions for the homeless or other living quarters). This category includes persons living in private dwellings but reporting 'no usual address on their census form.
The CES acknowledges that the above approach does not provide a full definition of the 'homeless'.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 10 December 1948 by the UN General Assembly, contains this text regarding housing and quality of living:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

The ETHOS Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion was developed as a means of improving the understanding and measurement of homelessness in Europe, and to provide a common "language" for transnational exchanges on homelessness. The ETHOS approach says homelessness is a process (rather than a static phenomenon) that affects many vulnerable households at different points in their lives.

The typology was launched in 2005 and is used for different purposes: as a framework for debate, for data collection purposes, policy purposes, monitoring purposes, and in the media. This typology is an open exercise that makes abstraction of existing legal definitions in the EU member states. It exists in 25 language versions, the translations being provided mainly by volunteer translators.

Recent homeless enumeration survey documentation utilizes the term unsheltered homeless. The common colloquial term "street people" does not fully encompass all unsheltered people, in that many such persons do not spend their time in urban street environments. Many shun such locales, because homeless people in urban environments may face the risk of being robbed or assaulted. Some people convert unoccupied or abandoned buildings (" squatting"), or inhabit mountainous areas or, more often, lowland meadows, creek banks, and beaches.

The Bowery Mission in New York City, c. 1800s

A homeless man living in a sewer, Vienna, Austria, c. 1900

Following the Peasants' Revolt, English constables were authorized under 1383 English Poor Laws to collar vagabonds and force them to show support; if they could not, the penalty was gaol. Vagabonds could be sentenced to the stocks for three days and nights; in 1530, whipping was added. The presumption was that vagabonds were unlicensed beggars. In 1547, a bill was passed that subjected vagrants to more provisions of the criminal law, namely two years servitude and branding with a "V" as the penalty for the first offense and death for the second. Many vagabonds were among the convicts transported to the American colonies in the 18th century.

During the 16th century in England, the state first tried to give housing to vagrants instead of punishing them, by introducing bridewells to take vagrants and train them for a profession. In the 17th and 18th centuries, these were replaced by workhouses but these were intended to discourage too much reliance on state help.

In the Antebellum South, the availability of slave labor made it difficult for poor white people to find work. To prevent them from cooperating with enslaved black people, slaveowners policed poor whites with vagrancy laws.

After the American Civil War, a large number (by the hundreds or thousands) of homeless men formed part of a counterculture known as "hobohemia" all over the United States. In smaller towns, hobos temporarily lived near train tracks and hopped onto trains to various destinations.

The growing movement toward social concern sparked the development of rescue missions, such as the U.S. first rescue mission, the New York City Rescue Mission, founded in 1872 by Jerry and Maria McAuley.

Food line at the Yonge Street Mission, Yonge Street, Toronto, Canada, in the 1930s

The U.S. Great Depression of the 1930s caused an epidemic of poverty, hunger, and homelessness in the United States. When Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the presidency from Herbert Hoover in 1933, he signed the New Deal, which expanded social welfare, including providing funds to build public housing.

How the Other Half Lives and Jack London's The People of the Abyss (1903) discussed homelessness and raised public awareness, which caused some changes in building codes and some social conditions. In England, dormitory housing called "spikes" was provided by local boroughs. By the 1930s in England, 30,000 people were living in these facilities. In 1933, George Orwell wrote about poverty in London and Paris, in his book Down and Out in Paris and London. In general, in most countries, many towns and cities had an area that contained the poor, transients, and afflicted, such as a " skid row". In New York City, for example, there was "the Bowery" - traditionally, where people with an alcohol use disorder were to be found sleeping on the streets, bottle in hand.

In the 1960s in the U.K., the nature and growing problem of homelessness changed in England as public concern grew. The number of people living "rough" in the streets had increased dramatically. However, beginning with the Conservative administration's Rough Sleeper Initiative, the number of people sleeping rough in London fell dramatically. This initiative was supported further by the incoming Labour administration from 2009 onwards with the publication of the 'Coming in from the Cold' strategy published by the Rough Sleepers Unit, which proposed and delivered a massive increase in the number of hostel bed spaces in the capital and an increase in funding for street outreach teams, who work with rough sleepers to enable them to access services.

Scotland saw a slightly different picture, with the impact of the right to buy ending in a significant drop in available social housing. The 1980s and the 1990s resulted in an ever-increasing picture of people becoming homeless.

In 2001, the Scottish Parliament came into place. It was agreed by all parties that a ten-year plan to eradicate homelessness by the end of 2012 would be implemented. The Minister of Housing met with the third sector and Local Authorities every six weeks, checking on progress, whilst consultations brought about legislative change, alongside work to prevent homelessness. There was a peak in applications around 2005, but from there onwards figures dropped year on year for the next eight years. However, with a focus on the broader numbers of people experiencing homelessness, many people with higher levels of need got caught in the system. Work from 2017 started to address this, with a framework put in place to work towards a day where everyone in Scotland has a home suitable to meet their needs.

In the U.S., the government asked many major cities to come up with a ten-year plan to end homelessness. One of the results of this was a " Housing First" solution. The Housing First program offers homeless people access to housing without having to undergo tests for sobriety and drug usage. The Housing First program seems to benefit homeless people in every aspect except for substance abuse, for which the program offers little accountability.

An emerging consensus is that the Housing First program still gives clients a higher chance at retaining their housing once they get it. A few critical voices argue that it misuses resources and does more harm than good; they suggest that it encourages rent-seeking and that there is not yet enough evidence-based research on the effects of this program on the homeless population. Some formerly homeless people, who were finally able to obtain housing and other assets which helped to return to a normal lifestyle, have donated money and volunteer services to the organizations that provided aid to them during their homelessness. Alternatively, some social service entities that help homeless people now employ formerly homeless individuals to assist in the care process.

Homeless children in the United States.[34] The number of homeless children reached record highs in 2011,[35] 2012,[36] and 2013[37] at about three times their number in 1983.[36]

Homelessness has migrated toward rural and suburban areas. The number of homeless people has not changed dramatically but the number of homeless families has increased according to a report by HUD. The United States Congress appropriated $25million in the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants for 2008 to show the effectiveness of Rapid Re-housing programs in reducing family homelessness.

In February 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, part of which addressed homelessness prevention, allocating $1.5billion for a Homeless Prevention Fund. The Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG) program's name was changed to Emergency Solution Grant (ESG) program, and funds were reallocated to assist with homeless prevention and rapid re-housing for families and individuals.

Gentrification is a process in which a formerly affordable neighborhood becomes popular with wealthier people, raising housing prices and pushing poorer residents out. Gentrification can cause or influence evictions, foreclosures, and rent regulation.

Increased wealth disparity and income inequality cause distortions in the housing market that push rent burdens higher, making housing unaffordable.

In many countries, people lose their homes by government orders to make way for newer upscale high-rise buildings, roadways, and other governmental needs. The compensation may be minimal, in which case the former occupants cannot find appropriate new housing and become homeless.

Mortgage foreclosures where mortgage holders see the best solution to a loan default is to take and sell the house to pay off the debt can leave people homeless. Foreclosures on landlords often lead to the eviction of their tenants. "The Sarasota, Florida, Herald Tribune noted that, by some estimates, more than 311,000 tenants nationwide have been evicted from homes this year after lenders took over the properties."

Rent regulation also has a small effect on shelter and street populations. This is largely due to rent control reducing the quality and quantity of housing. For example, a 2019 study found that San Francisco's rent control laws reduced tenant displacement from rent-controlled units in the short-term, but resulted in landlords removing thirty percent of the rent-controlled units from the rental market, (by conversion to condos or TICs) which led to a fifteen percent citywide decrease in total rental units, and a seven percent increase in citywide rents.

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.

Lack of jobs that pay living wages, lack of affordable housing, and lack of health and social services can lead to poverty and homelessness. Factors that can lead to economic struggle include neighborhood gentrification (as previously discussed), job loss, debt, loss of money or assets due to divorce, death of breadwinning spouse, being denied jobs due to discrimination, and many others.

Moreover, the absence of accessible health and social services further compounds the economic struggle for many. Inadequate healthcare can lead to untreated illnesses, making it difficult for individuals to maintain employment, perpetuating a cycle of poverty. Social services, including mental health support and addiction treatment, are essential for addressing the root causes of economic hardship. However, limited access to these services leaves vulnerable populations without the necessary support systems, hindering their ability to escape poverty.

Studies show that preventive and primary care (which homeless people are not receiving) substantially lower overall healthcare costs. In terms of providing adequate treatment to homeless people for their mental illness, the healthcare system's performance has not been promising, either.

Disabilities, especially where disability services are non-existent, inconvenient, or poorly performing can impact a person's ability to support house payments, mortgages, or rent, especially if they are unable to work. Traumatic brain injury is one main disability that can account for homelessness. According to a Canadian survey, traumatic brain injury is widespread among homeless people and, for around 70 percent of respondents, can be attributed to a time "before the onset of homelessness"

Lack of housing serves as a social determinant of mental health. Being afflicted with a mental disorder, including substance use disorders, where mental health services are unavailable or difficult to access can also drive homelessness for the same reasons as disabilities. A United States federal survey in 2005 indicated that at least one-third of homeless men and women had serious psychiatric disorders or problems. Autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia are the top two common mental disabilities among the U.S. homeless. Personality disorders are also very prevalent, especially Cluster A.

A history of experiencing domestic violence can also attribute to homelessness. Compared to housed women, homeless women were more likely to report childhood histories of abuse, as well as more current physical abuse by male partners.

Social exclusion related to sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or sex characteristics can also attribute to homelessness based on discrimination. Relationship breakdown, particularly with young people and their parents, such as disownment due to sexuality or gender identity is one example.

Natural disasters, including but not limited to earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions can cause homelessness. An example is the 1999 Athens earthquake in Greece, in which many middle class people became homeless, with some of them living in containers, especially in the Nea Ionia earthquake survivors container city provided by the government; in most cases, their only property that survived the quake was their car. Such people are known in Greece as seismopathis, meaning earthquake-struck.

War or armed conflict can create refugees fleeing the violence. Whether they be either domestic or foreign to the country, the number of migrants can outstrip the supply of affordable housing, leaving some sections of this population to be homeless.

Although uncommon, some choose to be homeless as a personal lifestyle choice.

The basic problem of homelessness is the need for personal shelter, warmth, and safety. Other difficulties include:

Homeless people in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Hygiene and sanitary facilities

Hostility from the public and laws against urban vagrancy

Cleaning and drying of clothes

Obtaining, preparing, and storing food

Keeping contact with friends, family, and government service providers without a permanent location or mailing address

Medical problems, including issues caused by an individual's homeless state (e.g., hypothermia or frostbite from sleeping outside in cold weather), or issues that are exacerbated by homelessness due to lack of access to treatment (e.g., mental health and the individual not having a place to store prescription drugs)

Personal security, quiet, and privacy, especially for sleeping, bathing, and other hygiene activities

Safekeeping of bedding, clothing, and possessions, which may have to be carried at all times

People experiencing homelessness face many problems beyond the lack of a safe and suitable home. They are often faced with reduced access to private and public services and vital necessities:

General rejection or discrimination from other people

Increased risk of suffering violence and abuse

Limited access to education

Loss of usual relationships with the mainstream

Not being seen as suitable for employment

Reduced access to banking services

Reduced access to communications technology

Reduced access to healthcare and dental services

Targeting by municipalities to exclude from public space

Implication of hostile architecture

Difficulty forming trust with services, systems, and other people; exacerbating pre-existing difficulty accessing aid and escaping homelessness, particularly present in the chronically homeless. Statistics from the past twenty years, in Scotland, demonstrate that the biggest cause of homelessness is varying forms of relationship breakdown.

There is sometimes corruption and theft by the employees of a shelter, as evidenced by a 2011 investigative report by FOX 25 TV in Boston, wherein several Boston public shelter employees were found stealing large amounts of from the shelter's kitchen for their private use and catering over time. Homeless people are often obliged to adopt various strategies of self-presentation to maintain a sense of dignity, which constrains their interaction with passers-by, and leads to suspicion and stigmatization by the mainstream public.

Homelessness is also a risk factor for depression caused by prejudice. When someone is prejudiced against people who are homeless and then becomes homeless themselves, their anti-homelessness prejudice turns inward, causing depression. "Mental disorders, physical disability, homelessness, and having a sexually transmitted infection are all stigmatized statuses someone can gain despite having negative stereotypes about those groups." Difficulties can compound exponentially. A study found that in the city of Hong Kong over half of the homeless people in the city (56%) had some degree of mental illness. Only 13 percent of the 56 percent were receiving treatment for their condition leaving a huge portion of homeless untreated for their mental illness.

The issue of anti-homeless architecture came to light in 2014, after a photo displayed hostile features (spikes on the floor) in London, and took social media by storm. The photo of an anti-homeless structure was a classic example of hostile architecture, in an attempt to discourage people from attempting to access or use public space in irregular ways. However, although this has only recently came to light, hostile architecture has been around for a long time in many places. An example of this is a low overpass that was put in place between New York City and Long Island. Robert Moses, an urban planner, designed it this way in an attempt to prevent public buses from being able to pass through it.

Health care for homeless people is a major public health challenge. When compared to the general population, people who are homeless experience higher rates of adverse physical and mental health outcomes. Chronic disease severity, respiratory conditions, rates of mental health illnesses, and substance use are all often greater in homeless populations than in the general population. Homelessness is also associated with a high risk of suicide attempts.

Homeless people are more likely to suffer injuries and medical problems from their lifestyle on the street, which includes poor nutrition, exposure to the severe elements of weather, and higher exposure to violence. Yet at the same time, they have reduced access to public medical services or clinics, in part because they often lack identification or registration for public healthcare services. There are significant challenges in treating homeless people who have psychiatric disorders because clinical appointments may not be kept, their continuing whereabouts are unknown, their medicines may not be taken as prescribed, medical and psychiatric histories are not accurate, and other reasons. Because many homeless people have mental illnesses, this has presented a care crisis.

The conditions affecting homeless people are somewhat specialized and have opened a new area of medicine tailored to this population. Skin conditions, including scabies, are common, because homeless people are exposed to extreme cold in the winter, and have little access to bathing facilities. They have problems caring for their feet, and have more severe dental problems than the general population. Diabetes, especially untreated, is widespread in the homeless population. Specialized medical textbooks have been written to address this for providers.

A 2011 study led by Dr. RebeccaT. Brown in Boston, conducted by the Institute for Aging Research (an affiliate of Harvard Medical School), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program found the elderly homeless population had "higher rates of geriatric syndromes, including functional decline, falls, frailty, and depression than seniors in the general population, and that many of these conditions may be easily treated if detected". The report was published in the Journal of Geriatric Internal Medicine.

There have been significant numbers of unsheltered persons dying of hypothermia, adding impetus to the trend of establishing warming centers, as well as extending enumeration surveys with vulnerability indexes.

In 1999, Dr. Susan Barrow of the Columbia University Center for Homelessness Prevention Studies reported in a study that the "age-adjusted death rates of homeless men and women were four times those of the general U.S. population and two to three times those of the general population of New York City". A report commissioned by homeless charity Crisis in 2011 found that on average, homeless people in the U.K. have a life expectancy of 47 years, 30 years younger than the rest of the population.

The homeless population often lives in higher-risk urban areas, with increased exposure and little protection from the elements. They also have limited access to clean drinking water and other methods of cooling down. The built environment in urban areas also contributes to the " heat island effect", the phenomenon whereby cities experience higher temperatures due to the predominance of dark, paved surfaces, and lack of vegetation. Homeless populations are often excluded from disaster planning efforts, further increasing their vulnerability when these events occur. Without the means to escape extreme temperatures and seek proper shelter, and cooling or warming resources, homeless people are often left to suffer the brunt of the extreme weather.

Homeless people may find it difficult to document their date of birth or their address. Because homeless people usually have no place to store possessions, they often lose their belongings, including identification and other documents, or find them destroyed by police or others. Without a photo ID, homeless persons cannot get a job or access many social services, including healthcare. They can be denied access to even the most basic assistance: clothing closets, food pantries, certain public benefits, and in some cases, emergency shelters. Obtaining replacement identification is difficult. Without an address, birth certificates cannot be mailed. Fees may be cost-prohibitive for impoverished persons. And some states will not issue birth certificates unless the person has photo identification, creating a Catch-22. This problem is far less acute in countries that provide free-at-use health care, such as the U.K., where hospitals are open-access day and night and make no charges for treatment. In the U.S., free-care clinics for homeless people and other people do exist in major cities, but often attract more demand than they can meet.

The stigmas of homelessness can thus be divided into three major categories in general:

1. Attributing homelessness to personal incompetency and health conditions (e.g., unemployment, mental health issues, substance abuse, etc.);

2. Seeing homeless people as posing threats to one's safety;

3. De-sanitizing homeless people (i.e., seeing them as pathogens). Past research has shown that those types of stigmas are being reinforced through the fact that one is homeless and have a negative impact on effective public policymaking in terms of reducing homelessness. When a person lives on a street, many aspects of their personal situations, such as mental health issues and alcoholism, are more likely to be exposed to the public as compared to people who are not homeless and have access to resources that will help improve their personal crises. Such lack of privacy inevitably reinforces stigma by increasing observations of stereotypes for the public. Furthermore, the media often attributes those personal crises to the direct cause of crimes, further leading the public to believe that homeless people are a threat to their safety. Many also believe that contacts with homeless people increase their chance of contracting diseases given that they lack access to stable, sanitary living conditions. Those types of stigmas are intertwined with each other when shaping public opinions on policies related to the homeless population, resulting in many ineffective policies that do not reduce homelessness at all. An example of such ineffective but somewhat popular policies is imposing bans on sleeping on the streets.

Relying on the famous contact hypothesis, researchers argue that increasing contact between the homeless population and non-homeless population is likely to change public opinions on this out-group and make the public more well-informed when it comes to policymaking. While some believe that the contact hypothesis is only valid on the condition that the context and type of contact are specified, in the case of reducing discrimination against the homelessness population, some survey data indicate that the context (e.g., the proportion of the homeless population in one's city) and type of contact (e.g., TV shows about the homeless population or interpersonal conversations about homelessness) do not produce many variations as they all increase positive attitudes towards homeless people and public policies that aid this group. Given that the restrictions of contexts and types of contact to reduce stigma are minimal, this finding is informative and significant to the government when it comes to making policies to offer institutional support for reducing discrimination in a country and for gauging public opinions on their proposed policies to reduce homelessness.

According to UNICEF, there are one million children living on the streets in Egypt. Other researchers estimate the number to be some three million. Homelessness NGOs assisting street children include those such as Hope Village Society, and NAFAS. Other NGOs, such as Plan International Egypt, work to reintegrate street children back into their families.

Homelessness in South Africa dates back to the apartheid period. Increasing unemployment, lack of affordable housing, social disintegration, and social and economic policies have all been identified as contributing factors to the issue. Some scholars argue that solutions to homelessness in South Africa lie more within the private sphere than in the legal and political spheres.

In 2011, there were approximately 2.41million homeless adults and 179,000 homeless children living in the country. However, one publication estimated that there were one million homeless children in China in 2012.

Housing in China is highly regulated by the Hukou system. This gives rise to a large number of migrant workers, numbering 290.77 million in 2019. These migrant workers have rural Hukou, but they move to the cities in order to find better jobs, though due to their rural Hukou they are entitled to fewer privileges than those with urban Hukou. According to Huili et al., these migrant workers "live in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions" and are always at risk of displacement to make way for new real estate developments. In 2017, the government responded to a deadly fire in a crowded building in Beijing by cracking down on dense illegal shared accommodations and evicting the residents, leaving many migrant laborers homeless. This comes in the context of larger attempts by the government to limit the population increase in Beijing, often targeting migrant laborers. However, according to official government statistics, migrant workers in China have an average of 20.4 square metres (220 square feet) of living space per capita, and the vast majority of migrant workers have basic living facilities such as heating, bathing, refrigerators, and washing machines.

Homelessness among people with mental health problems is 'much less common' in China than in high-income countries, due to stronger family ties, but is increasing due to migration within families and as a result of the one-child policy. A study in Xiangtan found at least 2439 schizophrenic people that have been homeless on a total population of 2.8million. It was found that "homelessness was more common in individuals from rural communities (where social support services are limited), among those who wander away from their communities (i.e., those not from Xiangtan municipality), and among those with limited education (who are less able to mobilize social supports). Homelessness was also associated with greater age; [the cause] may be that older patients have 'burned their bridges' with relatives and, thus, end up on the streets."

In 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs announced several actions of the Central Committee in response to homelessness, including increasing support services and reuniting homeless people with their families. In Wuhan, the situation for homeless people was particularly bad, as the lockdown made it impossible for homeless migrants to return to other parts of the country. The Wuhan Civil Affairs Bureau set up 69 shelters in the city to house 4,843 people.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights defines 'homeless' as those who do not live in a regular residence due to lack of adequate housing, safety, and availability. The United Nations Economic and Social Council Statement has a broader definition for homelessness; it defines homelessness as follows: 'When we are talking about housing, we are not just talking about four walls and a roof. The right to adequate housing is about the security of tenure, affordability, access to services, and cultural adequacy. It is about protection from forced eviction and displacement, fighting homelessness, poverty, and exclusion. India defines 'homeless' as people who do not live in census houses, but rather stay on pavements, roadsides, railway platforms, staircases, temples, streets, in pipes, or other open spaces. There are 1.77million homeless people in India, or 0.15 percent of the country's total population, according to the 2011 census consisting of single men, women, mothers, the elderly, and the disabled. However, it is argued that the numbers are far greater than accounted by the point in time method. For example, while the Census of 2011 counted 46.724 homeless individuals in Delhi, the Indo-Global Social Service Society counted them to be 88,410, and another organization called the Delhi Development Authority counted them to be 150,000. Furthermore, there is a high proportion of mentally ill and street children in the homeless population. There are 18million street children in India, the largest number of any country in the world, with 11million being urban. Finally, more than three million men and women are homeless in India's capital city of New Delhi; the same population in Canada would make up approximately30 electoral districts. A family of four members has an average of five homeless generations in India.

There is a shortage of 18.78million houses in the country. The total number of houses has increased from 52.06million to 78.48million (as per the 2011 census). However, the country still ranks as the 124th wealthiest country in the world as of 2003. More than 90million people in India make less than perday, thus setting them below the global poverty threshold. The ability of the Government of India to tackle urban homelessness and poverty may be affected in the future by both external and internal factors. The number of people living in slums in India has more than doubled in the past two decades and now exceeds the entire population of Britain, the Indian Government has announced. About 78million people in India live in slums and tenements. Seventeen percent of the world's slum dwellers reside in India. After the release of the feature film Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, Mumbai was a slum tourist destination for slumming where homeless people and slum dwellers alike could be openly viewed by tourists.

Homelessness in Indonesia refers to the issue of homelessness, a condition wherein people lack a stable and appropriate place of housing. The number of homeless people in Indonesia is estimated to be up to three million people in the country, with over 28,000 in Jakarta alone. Several terms are used to describe homeless people in Indonesia, including tunawisma, which is used by the government, and gelandangan, meaning "tramp".

Squatters and street homeless people are often targeted by police raids who say that homeless people "disturb the attractiveness of the city".

One cause of homelessness in Indonesia is forced evictions. According to researchers, between the years 2000 and 2005 over 92,000 people were forcefully evicted from their homes.

Accordin to Governor of Isfahan homeless people are an issue, per revised Article 16 of drug combat law the offenders will be forced detained for three to 6 months by either IRGC or privately outsourced. The daily cost of a person kept is 28000 toman (50 cent). At best five percent return to normal life. They may receive vocational training. Women are kept separate. Iran has a housing crisis with people who sleep in graves called Grave dwellers, buses for 25000 toman per night, rooftops or multiple families renting and sharing one single apartment. Many renters may want to rent living space in shipping containers too.

Homelessness in Israel is a phenomenon that mostly developed after the mid-1980s.

Some 2,000 families in Israel lose their homes every year after defaulting on their mortgage loans. However, a law amendment passed in 2009 protects the rights of mortgage debtors and ensures that they are not evicted after failing to meet mortgage payments. The amendment is part of a wider reform in the law in the wake of a lengthy battle by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and other human rights groups.

In 2007, the number of homeless youth was on the rise. More than 25percent of all homeless youth in 2007 were girls, compared to 15percent in 2004. Areport by Elem, a non-profit organization that helps youth at risk, pointed to a five percent rise in the number of youths either homeless or wandering the streets late at night while their parents worked or due to strained relations at home. The organization estimated that in 2007 it provided programs or temporary shelter to roughly 32,000 youths in some 30locations countrywide.

Homelessness in Japan () is a social issue primarily affecting middle-aged and elderly males. Homelessness is thought to have peaked in the 1990s as a consequence of the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble and has largely fallen since then.

According to the "Special Act in regards to Supporting the Autonomy of the Homeless Population" ( Japanese: ホームレスの自立の支援等に関する特別措置法)), the term "homeless" is defined as "those [people] who utilize city parks, river banks, roads, train stations, and other facilities as their place of stay to live their daily lives".

Nicknames for homeless people in Japan include hōmuresu (, from the English "homeless"), furousha ( meaning "wandering person"), kojiki ( meaning beggar), and runpen (, from German " Lumpen"). More recently, nojukusha ( "person who sleeps outside") and nojuku roudousha ( "laborer who sleeps outside") have been used to avoid negative connotations associated with the word "homeless".

There are many centers for providing food for homeless people, including the Suneboge community center.

Homelessness across the U.K. is a devolved matter, resulting in different legislation, frameworks, and even definitions, from country to country.

Since the late 1990s, housing policy has been a devolved matter, and state support for homeless people, together with legal rights in housing, have therefore diverged to a certain degree. A national service, called Streetlink, was established in 2012 to help members of the public obtain near-immediate assistance for specific rough sleepers, with the support of the Government (as housing is a devolved matter, the service currently only extends to England).

The annual number of homeless households in England peaked in 2003-04 at 135,420 before falling to a low of 40,020 in 2009-10. In 2017-18, there were 56,600 homeless households, which was 60 percent below the 2003-04 peak, and 40percent higher than the 2009-10 low. The UK has more than 120,000 children in temporary accommodation, a number which has increased from 69,050 children in 2010.

In 2007 the official figures for England were that an average of 498 people slept rough each night, with 248 of those in London.

Homelessness in England since 2010 has been rising. By 2016 it is estimated the number sleeping rough had more than doubled since 2010. The National Audit Office said about homelessness in England 2010-17 there has been a 60 percent rise in households living in temporary accommodation and a rise of 134 percent in rough sleepers. It is estimated 4,751 people bedded down outside overnight in England in 2017, up 15percent over the previous year. The housing charity Shelter used data from four sets of official 2016 statistics and calculated 254,514 people in England were homeless.

Research into Women's Homelessness in London has found that the situations people face may vary based on their background and/or experience. This is known as multiple disadvantage. The 'Making Women Count' Report Archived 13 April 2023 at the Wayback Machine, released in March 2023 found over 154 women sleeping rough in just one week. This project was made in collaboration with SHP, St Mungo's, the Women's Development Unit (Solace Women's Aid and The Connection at St Martin's London Councils and the GLA alongside researchers from PraxisCollab.

Most recently updated in October 2020, Scotland is working to eradicate homelessness through the 'Ending Homelessness Together' action plan. It is anticipated that with this, alongside a focus on prevention, and Local Authorities working with the third sector on plans known as Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans, that people will no longer be homeless for any length of time.

In terms of figures, in 2020-21, there were 42,149 people in homeless households - 30,345 adults and 11,804 children in Scotland. This was a drop of nine percent from the previous year, though it is unclear if this was partly due to statistics being collected differently during the start of the pandemic.

Graffiti of homeless in Quebec City

After Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the presidency from Herbert Hoover in 1933, he oversaw the passage of the New Deal, which greatly expanded social welfare, including providing funds to build public housing. This marked the end of the Great Depression. However, the number of homeless people grew in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan decimated the public housing budget in the 1980s, including the federally funded affordable housing production put in place by the New Deal. By the mid-1980s, there was a dramatic increase in family homelessness. Tied into this was an increasing number of impoverished and runaway children, teenagers, and young adults, which created a new substratum of the homeless population ( street children or street youth).

In 2015, the United States reported that there were 564,708 homeless people within its borders, one of the higher reported figures worldwide.

Housing First is an initiative to help homeless people reintegrate into society, and out of homeless shelters. It was initiated by the federal government's Interagency Council on Homelessness. It asks cities to come up with a plan to end chronic homelessness. In this direction, there is the belief that if homeless people are given independent housing to start, with some proper social support, then there would be no need for emergency homeless shelters, which it considers a good outcome. However, this is a controversial position.

There is evidence that the Housing First program works more efficiently than Treatment First programs. Studies show that having the stability of housing through the Housing First program will encourage homeless people to focus on other struggles they are facing, such as substance abuse. Meanwhile, Treatment First programs promote an "all or nothing" approach which requires clients to participate in programs applicable to their struggles as a condition for housing assistance. Treatment First utilizes a less individualistic approach than Housing First and solutions are created under one standard rather than fit each client's specific needs.

Skid Row, Los Angeles contains one of the largest stable populations, between 5,000 and 8,000, of homeless people in the United States.[228]

In 2009 it was estimated that one out of 50children or 1.5 million children in the United States would experience some form of homelessness each year.

In 2010 in New York City, where there were over 36,000 homeless people in 2009, there was a mobile video exhibit in the streets showing a homeless person on a screen and asking onlookers and passersby to text with their cellphones a message for him, and they also could donate money by cellphones to the organization Pathways to Housing. In September 2010, it was reported that the Housing First Initiative had significantly reduced the chronic homeless single person population in Boston, Massachusetts, although homeless families were still increasing in number. Some shelters were reducing the number of beds due to lowered numbers of homeless, and some emergency shelter facilities were closing, especially the emergency Boston Night Center. In 2011, the Department of Veterans Affairs Supportive Services for Veterans Families Initiative, SSVF, began funding private non-profit organizations and consumer cooperatives to provide supportive services to very low-income veteran families living in or transitioning to permanent housing.

In 2019, in an interview with CBS News, scholar Sara Goldrick-Rab said that her study on college student homelessness found that "[n]early one in ten college students said they were homeless in the last year, meaning they had at least one night where they did not know where they were going to sleep."

According to the count by the Puerto Rico Department of Family, in January 2017 there were 3,501 homeless persons in the territory. The study shows that 26 percent of this population lives in the capital, San Juan. Other municipality's percentage of this population was Ponce at 6.3 percent, Arecibo at six percent, Caguas at 5.3 percent, and Mayagüez at 4.7 percent. Results from the study determined that 76 percent of the homeless population were men and 24 percent were women and that both men and women populations, were on average age, 40 years old. This steadily increasing population might have increased more drastically as a result of Hurricane María which caused over 90billion dollars in damage to the island of Puerto Rico.

Abandoned transient encampment in Mawson, ACT

Homelessness in New Zealand has been linked to the general issue of lack of suitable housing. The population of homeless people is generally measured through the country's census and by universities and other academic centres. In 2009, urban homelessness (rough sleepers or improvised dwellings) were estimated at less than 300, while rural homelessness (improvised dwellings) was estimated at between 500 and 1000. An additional 8,000-20,000 people live in "temporary accommodation unsuited for long-term habitation (caravans, campgrounds, substandard housing, and boarding houses)." Homelessness in New Zealand has traditionally been reduced by the provision of state housing, similar to Germany and other developed countries.

Statistical authorities in New Zealand have expanded their definition of homelessness to include 'people living in improvised shelters', 'people staying in camping grounds/motor camps', and 'people sharing accommodation with someone else's household'.

The issue is believed to have become increasingly visible in recent years. Media in New Zealand have published an accusatory account of the presence of homeless people in public spaces, positioning homeless men as disruptive threats. Though community members have shown support by writing opinion pieces.

In January 2019, The New York Times reported rising housing prices to be a major factor in the increasing homelessness in New Zealand so that "smaller markets like Tauranga, a coastal city on the North Island with a population of 128,000, had seen an influx of people who had left Auckland in search of more affordable housing. Average property values in Tauranga had risen to $497,000 from $304,000 in the last five years, and Demographia now rated it among the 10 least affordable cities in the world - along with famously expensive locales such as Hong Kong, San Francisco, Sydney and Vancouver, British Columbia."

In August 2019, the Associate Housing Minister Kris Faafoi and Social Development Minister Carmel Sepuloni announced that the Government would be launching a NZ$54million program to tackle homelessness in New Zealand. This includes investing $31million over the next four years for 67 intensive case managers and navigators to work with homeless people and a further $16million for the Sustaining Tenancies Programme. This funding complements the Government's Housing First programme.

After the abolition of serfdom in Russia in 1861, major cities experienced a large influx of former peasants who sought jobs as industrial workers in rapidly developing Russian industry. These people often lived in harsh conditions, sometimes renting a room shared between several families. There also was a large number of shelterless homeless people. Immediately after the October Revolution a special program of "compression" (уплотнение ) was enabled: people who had no shelter were settled in flats of those who had large (4, 5, or 6-room) flats with only one room left to previous owners. The flat was declared state property. This led to a large number of shared flats where several families lived simultaneously. Nevertheless, the problem of complete homelessness was mostly solved as anybody could apply for a room or a place in a dormitory (the number of shared flats steadily decreased after the large-scale residential building program was implemented starting in the 1960s).

By 1922 there were at least seven million homeless children in Russia as a result of nearly a decade of devastation from World War I and the Russian Civil War. This led to the creation of a large number of orphanages. By the 1930s the USSR declared the abolition of homelessness and any citizen was obliged to have a propiska - a place of permanent residency. Nobody could be stripped of propiska without substitution or refuse it without a confirmed permission (called "order") to register in another place. If someone wanted to move to another city or expand their living area, he had to find a partner who wanted to mutually exchange the flats. The right to shelter was secured in the Soviet constitution. Not having permanent residency was considered a crime.

Nevertheless, the state is still obliged to give permanent shelter for free to anybody who needs better living conditions or has no permanent registration, because the right to shelter is still included in the constitution. Several projects of special cheap 'social' flats for those who failed to repay mortgages were proposed to facilitate the mortgage market.

In western countries such as the United States, the typical homeless person is male and single, with the Netherlands reporting 80 percent of homeless people aged 18-65 to be men. Some cities have particularly high percentages of males in homeless populations, with men comprising 85 percent of the homeless in Dublin, Ireland. Non-white people are also overrepresented in homeless populations, with such groups two and one-half times more likely to be homeless in the U.S. The median age of homeless people is approximately 35.

European Union: 3,000,000 (UN-HABITAT 2004)

England: 11,580 single households were assessed as rough sleeping at the point of approach in 2021, up 39 percent from 2019-20, with 119,400 households owed a prevention duty in 2020-21 [256]

Scotland: 27,571 households were assessed as homeless in 2020 - 21, a decrease of 13 percent compared to 2019/20 [218]

Canada: 150,000[257]

Australia: On census night in 2006 there were 105,000 people homeless across Australia, an increase from the 99,900 Australians who were counted as homeless in the 2001 census[258]

Tents of homeless people in San Francisco, California, May 2020

United States:[259] The HUD 2018 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress reports that in a single night, roughly 553,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States.[260] According to HUD's July 2010 fifth Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, in a single night in January 2010, the single-point analysis reported to HUD showed 649,917 people experiencing homelessness. This number had increased from January 2009's 643,067. The unsheltered count increased by 2.8 percent while the sheltered count remained the same. Also, HUD reported the number of chronically homeless people (persons with severe disabilities and long homeless histories) decreased by one percent between 2009 and 2010, from 110,917 to 109,812. Since 2007 this number had decreased by 11 percent. This was mostly due to the expansion of permanent supportive housing programs.

The change in numbers has occurred due to the prevalence of homelessness in local communities rather than other changes. According to HUD's July 2010 Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, more than 1.59 million people spent at least one night in an emergency shelter or transitional housing program during the 2010 reporting period, a 2.2 percent increase from 2009. Most users of homeless shelters used only an emergency shelter, while 17 percent used only transitional housing, and less than 5 percent used both during the reporting period. Since 2007, the annual number of those using homeless shelters in cities has decreased from 1.22 million to 1.02 million, a 17 percent decrease. The number of persons using homeless shelters in suburban and rural areas increased by 57 percent, from 367,000 to 576,000.[261] In the U.S., the federal government's HUD agency has required federally-funded organizations to use a computer tracking system for homeless people and their statistics, called HMIS (Homeless Management Information System).[262][263][264] There has been some opposition to this kind of tracking by privacy advocacy groups, such as EPIC.[265]

However, HUD considers its reporting techniques to be reasonably accurate for homeless in shelters and programs in its Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress.[266][267] Determining and counting the number of homeless is very difficult in general due to their lifestyle habits.[268][269] There are so-called "hidden homeless" out of sight of the normal population and perhaps staying on private property.[270] Various countries, states, and cities have come up with different means and techniques to calculate an approximate count. For example, a one-night "homeless census count", called a point-in-time (PIT) count, usually held in early winter for the year, is a technique used by several American cities, such as Boston.[271][272][273] Los Angeles uses a mixed set of techniques for counting, including the PIT street count.[270][274]

In 2003, The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had begun requiring a PIT count in all "Continuum of Care" communities which required them to report a count of people, housing status, and geographic locations of individuals counted. Some communities provide sub-population information to the PIT, such as information on veterans, youth, and elderly individuals, as done in Boston.[275]

Japan: 20,000-100,000 (some figures put it at 200,000-400,000).[276] Reports show that homelessness is on the rise in Japan since the mid-1990s.[277] There are more homeless men than homeless women in Japan because it is usually easier for women to get a job and they are less isolated than men. Also, Japanese families usually provide more support for women than they do for men.[278]

The number of homeless people worldwide grew steadily in 2005. In some developing countries such as Nigeria and South Africa, homelessness is rampant, with millions of children living and working on the streets. Homelessness has become a problem in the countries of China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines despite their growing prosperity, partly due to migrant workers who have trouble finding permanent homes.

Determining the true number of homeless people worldwide varies between 100million and one billion people based on the exact definition used. Refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced persons can also be considered homeless in that they, too, experience "marginalization, minority status, socioeconomic disadvantage, poor physical health, the collapse of social supports, psychological distress, and difficulty adapting to host cultures" such as the domestic homeless.

Refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2013

Thus, the current definition of homelessness allows people to simplistically assume that homeless people, including refugees, are merely "without a place to live" when that is not the case. As numerous studies show, forced migration and displacement bring with it another host of problems including socioeconomic instability, "increased stress, isolation, and new responsibilities" in a completely new environment.

For people in Russia, especially the youth, alcohol, and substance use is a major cause and reason for becoming and continuing to be homeless. The United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UN-Habitat) wrote in its Global Report on Human Settlements in 1995: "Homelessness is a problem in developed as well as in developing countries. In London, for example, life expectancy among homeless people is more than 25 years lower than the national average."

In 2008, Dr. Anna Tibaijuka, executive director of UN-HABITAT, referring to the recent report "State of the World's Cities Report 2008/2009", said that the world economic crisis we are in should be viewed as a "housing finance crisis" in which the poorest of the poor were left to fend for themselves.

There are various places where a homeless person might seek refuge:

24-hour Internet cafes are now used by over 5,000 Japanese "Net cafe refugees". An estimated 75 percent of Japan's 3,200 all-night internet cafes cater to regular overnight guests, who in some cases have become their main source of income.

24-hour McDonald's restaurants are used by "McRefugees" in Japan, China, and Hong Kong. There are about 250 McRefugees in Hong Kong.

Couch surfing: temporary sleeping arrangements in dwellings of friends or family members ("couch surfing"). This can also include housing in exchange for labor or sex. Couch surfers may be harder to recognize than street homeless people and are often omitted from housing counts.

Homeless shelters: including emergency cold-weather shelters opened by churches or community agencies, which may consist of cots in a heated warehouse, or temporary Christmas Shelters. More elaborate homeless shelters such as Pinellas Hope in Florida provide residents with a recreation tent, a dining tent, laundry facilities, outdoor tents, casitas, and shuttle services that help inhabitants get to their jobs each day.

Inexpensive boarding houses: have also been called flophouses. They offer cheap, low-quality temporary lodging.

Inexpensive motels offer cheap, low-quality temporary lodging. However, some who can afford housing live in a motel by choice. For example, David and Jean Davidson spent 22 years at various U.K. Travelodges.

Public places: Parks, bus or train stations, public libraries, airports, public transportation vehicles (by continual riding where unlimited passes are available), hospital lobbies or waiting areas, college campuses, and 24-hour businesses such as coffee shops. Many public places use security guards or police to prevent people from loitering or sleeping at these locations for a variety of reasons, including image, safety, and comfort of patrons.

Shantytowns: ad hoc dwelling sites of improvised shelters and shacks, usually near rail yards, interstates and high transportation veins. Some shantytowns have interstitial tenting areas, but the predominant feature consists of hard structures. Each pad or site tends to accumulate roofing, sheathing, plywood, and nailed two-by-fours.

Single room occupancy (more commonly abbreviated to SRO): a form of housing that is typically aimed at residents with low or minimal incomes who rent small, furnished single rooms with a bed, chair, and sometimes a small desk. SRO units are rented out as permanent residence or primary residence to individuals, within a multi-tenant building where tenants share a kitchen, toilets or bathrooms. In the 2010s, some SRO units may have a small refrigerator, microwave, and sink. (also called a "residential hotel").

Squatting in an unoccupied structure where a homeless person may live without payment and the owner's knowledge or permission. Often these buildings are long abandoned and not safe to occupy.

Tent cities: ad hoc campsites of tents and improvised shelters consisting of tarpaulins and blankets, often near industrial and institutionally zoned real estate such as rail yards, highways and high transportation veins. A few more elaborate tent cities, such as Dignity Village, are hybrids of tent cities and shantytowns. Tent cities frequently consist only of tents and fabric-improvised structures, with no semi-permanent structures at all.

Outdoors: on the ground or in a sleeping bag, tent, or improvised shelter, such as a large cardboard box, under a bridge, in an urban doorway, in a park, or in a vacant lot.

Tunnels such as abandoned subway, maintenance, or train tunnels are popular among long-term or permanent homeless people. The inhabitants of such refuges are called in some places, like New York City, "Mole People". Natural caves beneath urban centers allow for places where people can congregate. Leaking water pipes, electric wires, and steam pipes allow for some of the essentials of living.

Vehicles: cars or trucks used as temporary or sometimes long-term living quarters, for example by those recently evicted from a home. Some people live in recreational vehicles (RVs), school buses, vans, sport utility vehicles, covered pickup trucks, station wagons, sedans, or hatchbacks. The vehicular homeless, according to homeless advocates and researchers, comprise the fastest-growing segment of the homeless population. Many cities have safe parking programs in which lawful sites are permitted at churches or in other out-of-the-way locations. For example, because it is illegal to park on the street in Santa Barbara, California, the New Beginnings Counseling Center worked with the city to make designated parking lots available to homeless people.

Foyers are a specific type of transitional housing designed for homeless or at-risk teens. Foyers are generally institutions that provide affordable accommodation as well as support and training services for residents. They were pioneered in the 1990s in the United Kingdom, but have been adopted in areas in Australia and the United States as well.

Supportive housing is a combination of housing and services intended as a cost-effective way to help people live more stable, productive lives. Supportive housing works well for those who face the most complex challenges - individuals and families confronted with homelessness who also have very low incomes or serious, persistent issues such as substance use disorder, addictions, alcohol use disorder, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, or other serious challenges. A 2021 systematic review of 28 interventions, mostly in North America, showed that interventions with the highest levels of support led to improved outcomes for both housing stability, and health outcomes.

Government initiatives: In South Australia, the state government of Premier Mike Rann (2002-2011) committed substantial funding to a series of initiatives designed to combat homelessness. Advised by Social Inclusion Commissioner David Cappo and the founder of New York's Common Ground program, Rosanne Haggerty, the Rann government established Common Ground Adelaide, building high-quality inner city apartments (combined with intensive support) for "rough sleeping" homeless people. The government also funded the Street to Home program and a hospital liaison service designed to assist homeless people admitted to the emergency departments of Adelaide's major public hospitals. Rather than being released back into homelessness, patients identified as rough sleepers were found accommodation backed by professional support. Common Ground and Street to Home now operate across Australia in other States.

This section focuses only on Please help one specialized aspect of the subject. improve this article by adding general information and discuss at the talk page.

While some homeless people are known to have a community with one another, providing each other various types of support, people who are not homeless also may provide them friendship, relational care, and other forms of assistance. Such social support may occur through a formal process, such as under the auspices of a non-governmental organization, religious organization, or homeless ministry, or may be done on an individual basis.

The United States Department of Labor has sought to address one of the main causes of homelessness, a lack of meaningful and sustainable employment, through targeted training programs and increased access to employment opportunities that can help homeless people develop sustainable lifestyles. This has included the development of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, which addresses homelessness on the federal level in addition to connecting homeless individuals to resources at the state level. All individuals who are in need of assistance are able, in theory, to access employment and training services under the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), although this is contingent upon funding and program support by the government.

Homeless people can also use waste management services to earn money. Some homeless people find returnable bottles and cans and bring them to recycling centers to earn money. They can sort out organic trash from other trash or separate out trash made of the same material (for example, different types of plastics, and different types of metal). In addition, rather than picking waste at landfills, they can also collect litter found on/beside the road to earn an income.

A street newspaper vendor, selling Street Sheet, in San Francisco, United States

Street newspapers are newspapers or magazines sold by homeless or poor individuals and produced mainly to support these populations. Most such newspapers primarily provide coverage of homelessness and poverty-related issues and seek to strengthen social networks within homeless communities, making them a tool for allowing homeless individuals to work.

The 2010 passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act could provide new healthcare options for homeless people in the United States, particularly through the optional expansion of Medicaid. A2013 Yale study indicated that a substantial proportion of the chronically homeless population in America would be able to obtain Medicaid coverage if states expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

In 1985, the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program was founded to assist the growing numbers of homeless people living on the streets and in shelters in Boston who were suffering from a lack of effective medical services. In 2004, Boston Health Care for the Homeless in conjunction with the National Health Care for the Homeless Council published a medical manual called The Health Care of Homeless Persons, edited by James J. O'Connell, M.D., specifically for the treatment of the homeless population. In June 2008 in Boston, the Jean Yawkey Place, a four-story, 7,214.2-square-metre (77,653 sq ft) building, was opened by the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program. It is an entire full-service building on the Boston Medical Center campus dedicated to providing healthcare for homeless people. It also contains a long-term care facility, the Barbara McInnis House, which expanded to 104 beds and is the first and largest medical respite program for homeless people in the United States.

In Los Angeles, a collaboration between the Ostrow School of Dentistry of the University of Southern California and the Union Rescue Mission shelter offers homeless people in the Skid Row area free dental services.

Studies on the effects of intensive mental health interventions have demonstrated some improvements in housing stability and to be economically beneficial on cost-analysis.

In 2013, a Central Florida Commission on Homelessness study indicated that the region spends $31,000 a year per homeless person to cover "salaries of law enforcement officers to arrest and transport homeless individuals - largely for nonviolent offenses such as trespassing, public intoxication or sleeping in parks - as well as the cost of jail stays, emergency room visits and hospitalization for medical and psychiatric issues. This did not include "money spent by nonprofit agencies to feed, clothe and sometimes shelter these individuals". In contrast, the report estimated the cost of permanent supportive housing at "$10,051 per person per year" and concluded that "[h]ousing even half of the region's chronically homeless population would save taxpayers $149million over the next decade - even allowing for ten percent to end up back on the streets again." This particular study followed 107 long-term-homeless residents living in Orange, Osceola, and Seminole Counties. Similar studies are showing large financial savings in Charlotte, North Carolina, and southeastern Colorado from focusing on simply housing homeless people.

In general, housing interventions had mixed economic results in cost-analysis studies.

Voting for elected officials is important for the population of homeless people to have a voice in the democratic process.

Homeless veteran man in New York United States

Many homeless organizations support homeless veterans, an issue most commonly seen in the United States.

Non-governmental organizations house or redirect homeless veterans to care facilities. Social Security Income/Social Security Disability Income, Access, Outreach, Recovery Program (SOAR) is a national project funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. It is designed to increase access to SSI/SSDI for eligible adults who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and have a mental illness or a co-occurring substance use disorder. Using a three-pronged approach of Strategic Planning, Training, and Technical Assistance (TA), the SOAR TA Center coordinates this effort at the state and community level.

The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Administration have a special Section 8 housing voucher program called VASH (Veterans Administration Supported Housing), or HUD-VASH, which gives out a certain number of Section8 subsidized housing vouchers to eligible homeless and otherwise vulnerable US armed forces veterans. The HUD-VASH program has shown success in housing many homeless veterans. The support available to homeless veterans varies internationally, however. For example, in England, where there is a national right to housing, veterans are only prioritized by local authority homelessness teams if they are found to be vulnerable due to having served in the Armed Forces.

Under the Department of Labor, the Veterans' Employment and Training Service (VETS) offers a variety of programs targeted at ending homelessness among veterans. The Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program (HVRP) is the only national program that is exclusively focused on assisting veterans as they reenter the workforce. The VETS program also has an Incarcerated Veterans' Transition Program, as well as services that are unique to female Veterans. Mainstream programs initiated by the Department of Labor have included the Workforce Investment Act, One-Stop Career Centers, and a Community Voice Mail system that helps to connect homeless individuals around the United States with local resources. Targeted labor programs have included the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Project, the Disability Program Navigator Initiative, efforts to end chronic homelessness through providing employment and housing projects, Job Corps, and the Veterans Workforce Investment Program (VWIP).

Homelessness in popular culture is depicted in various works.

Modern Times, a 1936 film, shows the negative effects of vagrancy laws.

Cathy Come Home, 1966, shows the effects of homelessness on parenthood.

God Bless the Child, 1988, a made-for-TV movie about single mother (Mare Winningham) living on the streets of New York City with her young daughter.

Homeless Sam & Sally, a 2020 dark comedy film and television series with the same name released in 2019, is story about a mother named Sally Silver and her mentally ill son Sam Silver who comes up with ways to live normal lives while being homeless in Koreatown, Los Angeles.

, 2000, a documentary by Marc Singer, who followed the lives of people living in the Freedom Tunnel, an Amtrak tunnel in New York City.

Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray all at Story, a 2003 film about a homeless girl, Liz Murray, who works her way up to admission to Harvard University.

66 Months, a 2011 British documentary film about a homeless man who makes it on his own for six years without any government programs helping him.

The Pursuit of Happyness, a 2006 biographical film where a father and son get a job and end up homeless after an eviction and later a tax garnishment. After several weeks living from place to place in 1981 San Francisco, he lands a permanent position in a brokerage firm after completing an unpaid internship.

Same Kind of Different as Me, a 2017 American film about a successful art dealer, his wife, and an initially violent member of a homeless shelter community. It is based on the 2006 book of the same name.

Curly Sue, a 1991 comedy-drama that focuses on a homeless con artist and his friend who gets lucky with a roof over their heads by tricking a wealthy attorney.

Life Stinks, a 1991 comedy about a wealthy businessman who bets a corporate rival that he can live his life as a homeless man, but finds out later on in the story that being homeless is not easy or fun.

The Saint of Fort Washington, a 1993 drama where a homeless disabled man gets guidance from a friendly veteran as they cope with the realities of living on the streets.

Anderberg, Kristen (2011). 21st Century Essays on Homelessness. Seaward Avenue Press. ISBN 978-1456532369.

Arumi, Ana Maria, Yarrow, Andrew L., "Compassion, Concern, and Conflicted Feelings: New Yorkers on Homelessness and Housing" Archived 18 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Public Agenda Foundation, February 2007

Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Housing and Community Development, Homelessness Commission, Commission to End Homelessness, "Report of the Special Commission Relative to Ending Homelessness in The Commonwealth", Final Report, December 2007

Crosette, Barbara, "Homeless and Hungry Youths of India", The New York Times, 23 December 1990.

Desjarlais, Robert R., Shelter blues: sanity and selfhood among the homeless, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997

Friedman, Donna H., et al., "Preventing Homelessness and Promoting Housing Stability: A Comparative Analysis", The Boston Foundation, June 2007.

Howard, Ella (2013). Homeless: Poverty and Place in Urban America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812244724.

Institute of Medicine (U.S.), Committee on Healthcare for Homeless People, "Homelessness, Health, and Human Needs", Washington, D.C. : National Academy Press, 1988. ISBN 0309038359

Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, Springer Verlag and Psycke-Logos Press.

Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, 2005-2006 edition [1984], Lynn, Massachusetts.

Katz, Jessica Ilana, "Homelessness, Crime, Mental Illness, and Substance Abuse: A Core Population with Multiple Social Service Needs", Department of Urban Planning and Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 2003

Kenyon, Thomas, What You Can Do to Help the Homeless (Simon & Schuster, 1991)[ISBN missing ]

Min, Eungjun, (editor), Reading the Homeless: The Media's Image of Homeless Culture, Praeger Publishers, 1999. ISBN 0275959503

National Coalition for the Homeless, "American Nightmare: A Decade of Homelessness in the United States", December 1989

Nieto G., Gittelman M., Abad A. (2008). "Homeless Mentally Ill Persons: A bibliography review", International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation. 12(2)

O'Flaherty, Brendan, Making room : the economics of homelessness, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1996. ISBN 0674543424

Office for Public Management (UK), "Tackling Homelessness: learning from New York" Archived 10 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Seminar Report, London, February 2004

Scanlon, John, "Homelessness: Describing the Symptoms, Prescribing a Cure", The Heritage Foundation, Backgrounder No. 729, 2 October 1989

Miya Yoshida, "The Hidden Homeless in Japan's Contemporary Mobile Culture", NeMe, 2012

Southard, Peggy Ann Dee, "Looking for Sanctuary: Staying on Publicly Owned Lands as a Response to Homelessness", a dissertation presented to the Department of Sociology and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon.

Tsesis, Alexander, "Eliminating the Destitution of America's Homeless", Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review, Vol. 75, No. 539, 2002, Temple University Beasley School of Law

University of Michigan Libraries, Selected Bibliography of Homelessness Resources

Wright, James D. (1989). Address Unknown: The Homeless in America (3rd ed.). New York: Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-0202364094.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Homelessness or houselessness - also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered - is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.oxfam.org.nz/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhcqcvr-J3gIViKqWCh19Pgj0EAAYASAAEgLZvfD_BwE

# data[].attributes.headline
random act of kindness is all the world needs!!

# data[].attributes.subject
random act of kindness is all the world needs!!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Helping a hard working old man - Helping the homeless 2016

# data[].attributes.body
S M T E

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.childcancer.org.nz/get-involved/how-to-donate/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIob_Tm7-J3gIVCq6WCh0ojw0hEAAYASAAEgKk1vD_BwE

# data[].attributes.body
Breast cancer foundation

# data[].attributes.body
The ocean cleanup   T E M S A

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization developing advanced technologies to rid the oceans of plastic. We aim to remove 90% of the floating plastic with the help of ocean cleanup systems and river interception technologies.

# data[].attributes.body
Donate old clothing/linen to any local clothes bin

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.savethechildren.org.nz/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.rmhc.org/

# data[].attributes.body
canteen    M S A

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.worldvision.org.nz/causes/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.makeawish.org.nz/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thankyou is a social enterprise. 100% of the profit from our products go towards helping people in need.

# data[].attributes.body
Children's charity
Indonesia earthquake

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
UNICEF is the leading charity for children, operating for over 70 years, and in more than 190 countries all around the world.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.feedtheneed.co.nz/

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.kidscan.org.nz

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.eatmylunch.nz/