Beyond the Homeless Myth
People who don't have shelter are houseless - not homeless! Homelessness has nothing to do with a lack of shelter.
Define Homeless: 'An inadequate experience of connectedness with family and or community.'
Belonging somewhere is about belonging with other people. Like belong to a family or local community.
People in institutions including prisons or juvenile justice canters often feel the same loneliness or more accurately experience homelessness as the only people they have contact with other than the other 'homeless' inmates are people paid to be a part of their life.
These people are the equivalent of people who work in soup kitchens or shelters on the streets.
How many people are homeless
In 1996, an estimated 637,000 adults were homeless in a given week.
In the same year, an estimated 2.1 million adults were homeless over the course of a year.
These numbers increase dramatically when children are included, to 842,000 and 3.5 million, respectively.
Over a five-year period, about 2–3 percent of the U.S. population (5–8 million people) will experience at least one night of homelessness.
A much smaller group, perhaps as many as 500,000 people, has greater difficulty ending their homelessness.
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