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Since the early 1990s, those coping with homelessness have also faced increasing criminalization of homeless activities by local and state governments, including sleeping, eating, sitting, and begging in public spaces. As of November 2016, 27 percent of cities in the United States impose citywide bans on begging in public, including Clearwater, Florida; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Santa Cruz, California, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.

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Investment in Affordable Housing Is the Best Way to End Homelessness

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Frustrated by the lack of progress, in 2000, the National Alliance to End Homelessness announced a plan to end homelessness in 10 years. The core of the plan was helping people get back into permanent housing; it called on communities to transform their homeless systems, ensure rapid rehousing, and emphasize targeting interventions based on the needs of individuals and families, with the deepest housing subsidies and most intensive services going to those with the highest needs.

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This video represents that people are helping, and showing kindness to the ones who aren't capable of much.

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Homeless man getting help after viral photo

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This video also represents that people are trying to help the homeless and that people feel bad for them

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This viewpoint is about how teens are better when the live on the streets. But thatś not true. Even if youŕe a teen, you shouldńt be living on the street. Because teenagers are still considered as children. So teens do not always do better in streets.

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This one is about how nobody should ever have to experience homelessness and should be to have access to a home and a secure job.

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Every individual in our society should be guaranteed basic human rights, including the right to employment and a secure home. So we said in our policy statement more than 30 years ago!

The good news is that the number of individuals who are homeless has declined in recent years. But so much more needs to be done. The lack of access to safe and stable housing is still a barrier to economic independence, quality health care, and social support for the most vulnerable in society.

Family Homelessness

In declaring that "no one should experience homelessness, no one should be without a safe, stable place to call home," the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness has set 2020 as the goal for preventing and ending homelessness for families, youth, and children.

Although the number of homeless families has declined in recent years, far too many families still lack safe and stable housing. Further, the number of renters with very low incomes who do not receive government housing assistance and who either pay more than half their monthly income for rent, live in severely substandard housing, or both is troubling.

Families experiencing homelessness are similar to other families living in poverty. These families tend to be headed by young single women with limited education. Approximately 80% have been victims of domestic violence. They have other challenges as well, including exposure to community violence and high rates of mental health illness. According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, they may have less access to housing subsidies and supportive services and weaker social networks.

For children, the experience of being homeless is often stressful and traumatic. Researchers in North Carolina found that these children are exposed to circumstances, including violence and chronic poverty, that places them at risk of a range of adverse outcomes, including mental health, health, and academic problems.

Position Statement on Family Homelessness

In response to the release of "America's Youngest Outcasts" in 2009, we joined with the National Center on Family
Homelessness to develop a special sectiono n parenting and homelessness in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry on family homelessness. Our Spotlight
and a position statement provides abstracts of research published in AJO on family homelessness since the 2009 special section.

Position Statements on Homelessness

Want to learn more?

What can you do?

Advocate in your community and state for more affordable housing

Learn more about homeless populations in your community and state

Organize a network in your community to provide support to homeless children and families

Raise awareness in your community and state about the challenges facing populations without homes

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Every individual in our society should be guaranteed basic human rights, including the right to employment and a secure home. So we said in our policy statement more than 30 years ago! The good news is that the number of individuals who are homeless has declined in recent years.

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This Article is about what itś like for children when theyŕe homeless and how it can change them in the future.

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Key facts about homelessness among children and youth

In the 2016-17 school year, 1.4 million students (ages 6 to 18) experienced homelessness.

Most students experiencing homelessness were doubling up with other families during the 2016-17 school year (75 percent), while others were in shelters (15 percent), hotels/motels (7 percent), or were unsheltered (4 percent).

In 2017, most children and youth experiencing homelessness who were unaccompanied were 13 to 17 years old (87 percent), while a disproportionately high number of all children in federally-funded shelters were infants (under age 1) and young children (ages 6 and younger)-10 and 45 percent, respectively.

Trends in homelessness among children and youth

Data reported here come from two primary sources: school districts, which are required to report on the number of homeless students they serve; and censuses of federally-funded homeless shelters and temporary housing programs, conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

At the beginning of school year 2016-17, there were 1.4 million students who were homeless. This is more than twice the number of students who were homeless in school year 2004-05 (590,000). Some of this increase may be due to improved reporting, since in 2004-05, only 65 percent of school districts reported data (compared to 99 percent in 2016-17).[1] However, there is good reason to believe that a least some of the increase reflects real growth in this population; in school year 2007-08, with 91 percent of school districts reporting, there were only 795,000 students who were homeless. A smaller peak in 2005 may be due to families displaced by the unusually destructive hurricane season in late summer/early fall of that year ( Appendix 1).[2]

Differences by living situation

In school year 2016-17, the majority (75 percent) of students experiencing homelessness were "doubling up" with other families. One-sixth (15 percent) were staying in shelters, 7 percent were in hotels or motels, and 4 percent were "unsheltered," meaning that they were living outside, in abandoned buildings, in cars, or in other places not meant for human habitation ( Appendix 1).

Most of the increase in homelessness since the 2006-07 school year has been in the number of students who are "doubled up." Since then, that number increased by 150 percent, from 421,000 to more than a million "doubled-up" students, and the proportion rose from 61 to 75 percent of all students experiencing homelessness. Similarly, the number of students living in hotels or motels increased by 82 percent, and those living in shelters increased by 28 percent. The number of unsheltered homeless students fell slightly, from 54 to 53 thousand ( Appendix 1).

Differences by age

Children in federally funded shelters are disproportionately young. During the school year of 2016-17, 10 percent of all children experiencing homelessness who spent time in shelters were under the age of 1, 35 percent ages 1 to 5, 34 percent ages 6 to 12, and 22 percent ages 13 to 17. Among unaccompanied youth (that is, youth unaccompanied by an adult), a large majority (87 percent) were ages 13 to 17. However, 10 percent were ages 6 to 12, and another 2 percent were younger than age 6 ( Appendix 2).

Differences by gender

In 2017, there were roughly equal numbers of male and female children in shelters. Among unaccompanied youth in shelters, 52 percent were female. While this is consistent with the pattern since 2009, before then males were the majority of unaccompanied youth ( Appendix 2).

Background
Definition
Students experiencing homelessness include those who meet the definition set out by McKinney-Vento Homelessness Assistance Act definition (amended by ESSA in 2015):

Children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; or are abandoned in hospitals

Children and youths who have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings

Children and youths who are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings

Note: Migratory children qualify as homeless if the children are living in circumstances described above.

Children and youth experiencing homelessness include those who meet the definition set out in the HEARTH act of 2009:

Someone who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence

Someone who has as a primary nighttime residence a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, including a car, park, abandoned building, bus or train station, airport, or camping ground

Someone living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designated to provide temporary living arrangements

Someone who resided in a shelter or place not meant for human habitation and who is exiting an institution where he or she temporarily resided

Someone who will imminently lose their housing, including housing they own, rent, or live in without paying rent; housing they are sharing with others; and rooms in hotels or motels; and who has no subsequent residence identified, and lacks the resources or support networks needed to obtain other permanent housing

A family that has experienced a long-term period without living independently in permanent housing, has experienced persistent instability as measured by frequent moves over such period, and can be expected to continue in such status for an extended period of time because of chronic disabilities, chronic physical health or mental health conditions, substance addiction, histories of domestic violence or childhood abuse, the presence of a child or youth with a disability, or multiple barriers to employment

The sheltered homeless are those who have used a federally supported housing shelter in the past 12 months.

Estimates for students experiencing homelessness also include those who are "doubled up," meaning that they do not have a permanent housing situation and instead stay with extended family members, friends, or someone else.
Endnotes
[1] U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics. (2017). The condition of education: Homeless children and youth in public schools. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_tgh.asp#f4.

[2] American Institutes for Research, National Center on Family Homelessness. (2011). America's youngest outcasts 2010: State report card on child homelessness. Retrieved from https://www.ieccwa.org/uploads/IECC2014/HANDOUTS/KEY_2775948/AYO2010FactSheet_121211.pdf.
Citation
Child Trends. (2019). Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness. Retrieved from https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/homeless-children-and-youth.

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Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness - Child Trends

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In the 2016-17 school year, 1.4 million students (ages 6 to 18) experienced homelessness. Most students experiencing homelessness were doubling up with other families during the 2016-17 school year (75 percent), while others were in shelters (15 percent), hotels/motels (7 percent), or were unsheltered (4 percent).

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The 3rd article is about how it´s not safe for children to be homeless. And how homelessness is rising so quickly. Also itś about what is being done for the homeless and how the homeless is getting helped. Another thing is how homeless people don´t alway have to live on the streets they could be in the homeless shelters.

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The number of homeless people in the U.S. is rising for the first time in years. What's behind the increase? Here's everything you need to know:
How bad is the problem?
About 554,000 people in the U.S. were homeless on any given night in 2017 - including nearly 58,000 families with children - meaning they didn't have a safe, permanent place to sleep. That figure represents a 1 percent rise since 2016 - the first time the nation's homeless population has increased in seven years. But the country's biggest cities, especially those on the West Coast, have seen a far bigger rise in homelessness. New York City, which has the nation's largest homeless population, reported a 4 percent increase since 2016 to about 76,500 people, San Diego a 5 percent increase to 9,160, and Los Angeles a 26 percent increase to nearly 55,200. Many of those homeless people crowd into places like L.A.'s "Skid Row," where hundreds of tents and tarpaulin shanties crowd the sidewalks just blocks from City Hall. "Skid Row is - and long has been - a national disgrace," the Los Angeles Times wrote in a recent editorial. "In the world's richest nation, homelessness on this scale should be shameful and shocking."

Do all homeless people live on the street?
No, in fact about two-thirds of homeless people in the U.S. live in some kind of shelter or temporary housing, staying with friends or family or in a motel. But the number of street sleepers varies from city to city. In New York, which is required by law to provide shelter for all residents, about 3,000 people sleep on the streets. In Los Angeles, three-quarters of the homeless - some 40,000 people - don't have shelter, and sleep outside or in their vehicles. Many communities make it a crime to live outside. More than 80 cities have passed laws making it illegal to sleep in vehicles, and more than 60 have banned camping in public. Cities such as Denver and San Francisco have handed out free one-way bus tickets to the homeless, hoping to off-load the problem onto another community. "Society's message to the homeless is abundantly clear: You don't matter, because you don't have money," says Veronica Harnish, who blogs about her experiences with intermittent homelessness.

Why is homelessness rising?
While some people become homeless because of mental illness and drug addiction, more than 75 percent simply can't afford a place to live. There are now only 12 counties in the U.S. where a worker earning the state minimum wage or federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour would be able to afford a one-bedroom rental home on their own, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. And while wage growth has remained flat for the past 20 years, the median rent for a vacant home or apartment has doubled over the same period, to about $910 in 2017. A shortage of housing is pushing up rents, and so is gentrification of neighborhoods where poor people used to live. In most cities, the demand for housing far outstrips the supply. New York City, for example, added 62,345 new housing units from 2011 to 2015, enough to house about 125,000 people, but its population grew by more than 300,000 over the same period.

What's being done to help?
With no signs of the problem disappearing, some communities are turning away from punitive approaches. Instead of razing its homeless encampments, Oakland has started providing trash pickup and portable bathrooms for residents. After a Hepatitis A outbreak began ravaging Southern California's homeless community, private donors, charities, and city authorities worked together to erect three "bridge shelters" in San Diego. The tent-like structures are the size of a city block and filled with rows of bunk beds. They have heating and cooling, laundry facilities, and communal dining areas, plus 24/7 security and access to social services. Seattle has authorized permanent encampments for the past decade, with 11 sanctioned camps in the Puget Sound area that receive city funding. But such projects remain controversial, among both Seattleites who don't want to live near such camps and homelessness advocates who say they're a stopgap solution.

How can cities get people off the street?
Many experts believe the best solution is to simply put the homeless into low-cost or free apartments, without preconditions. Utah, which has a "Housing First" strategy, has one of the nation's lowest rates of chronic homelessness. Just 6 percent of the state's homeless are considered chronic - people who have been living on the streets for more than a year - compared with 24 percent nationwide. Evidence suggests that programs like Utah's are far more cost-effective than putting homeless people in transitional housing. One Colorado study found that the average homeless person costs taxpayers $43,000 a year in shelters, emergency-room visits, and other expenses, while providing permanent housing for the same person would cost $17,000 a year.

Would that work elsewhere?
Finding vacant homes is a challenge in crowded, booming states like California, which would need to build 180,000 new housing units each year - 100,000 more than are currently being built - simply to keep up with population growth. "It's obvious what the answer is: affordable housing," said Bob Erlenbusch, who began working with the homeless in Los Angeles in 1984. "I never in a million years thought that it would drag on for three decades with no end in sight."

Working while homeless
While many people associate the homeless with begging, about 25 percent of the homeless population has a job, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute. In the heart of California's Silicon Valley, where rents are $3,000 or more, low-income workers in industries like food service, retail, and hospitality juggle their day jobs with finding a place to sleep at night. Tes Saldana, 51, works as a cook for two hotels in Palo Alto. She lives in an RV with her three adult sons, two of whom also work; their monthly vehicle payments come to $700. Until recently, she parked on a tree-lined street in nearby Mountain View along with a group of fellow homeless RV campers. Late last year, the city banned vehicles more than 6 feet high from parking there. It's tough, she says, living in the shadow of enormous wealth. "How about for us people who are serving these tech people?" Saldana said. "We don't get the same paycheck that they do."

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The number of homeless people in the U.S. is rising for the first time in years. What's behind the increase? Here's everything you need to know: How bad is the problem? About 554,000 people in the U.S. were homeless on any given night in 2017 - including nearly 58,000 families with children - meaning they didn't have a safe, permanent place to sleep.