Homeless Awareness Week

November 13-19 is Homeless Awareness Week in Michigan. This year’s theme, “We End it Here. We End it Now.” is a call to action to all Michigan residents. Homeless Awareness Week is a statewide campaign to educate the public about the many reasons people are homeless and to highlight the fact that there is a shortage of affordable housing for low income people.

The Michigan Coalition Against Homelessness website has a wealth of information concerning the homeless, along with a directory of resources people who are homeless or in danger of becoming homeless can turn to for help. Here are some statictics on poverty and homelessness from their website:

Forty percent of persons living in poverty are children; in fact, the 2003 poverty rate of 17.6% for children is significantly higher than the poverty rate for any other age group.

A survey of 27 U.S. cities found that over one in four people in homeless situations are employed, a significant increase from 1998 (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2000 & 2003).

In a number of cities not surveyed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors - as well as in many states - the percentage is even higher (National Coalition for the Homeless, 1997).

The future of job growth does not appear promising for many workers: a 1998 study estimated that 46% of the jobs with the most growth between 1994 and 2005 pay less than $16,000 a year; these jobs will not lift families out of poverty (National Priorities Project, 1998).

Moreover, 74% of these jobs pay below a livable wage ($32,185 for a family of four). Thus, for many Americans, work provides no escape from poverty.

In every state, more than the minimum wage is required to afford a one or two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent. In fact, in the median state a minimum-wage worker would have to work 89 hours each week to afford a two-bedroom apartment at 30% of his or her income, which is the federal definition of affordable housing (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2001)

Currently, 5 million rental households have “worst case housing needs,” which means that they pay more than half their incomes for rent, living in severely substandard housing, or both. The primary source of income for 80% of these households is earnings from jobs. In 1998, this was the case for only 40% of households with worst case housing needs. This represents a 40% increase in working households with worst case housing needs from 1995 to 1999 (U.S. Housing and Urban Development, 2001).

People with disabilities, too, must struggle to obtain and maintain stable housing. In 1998, on a national average, a person receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits had to spend 69% of his or her SSI monthly income to rent a one-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent.

In more than 125 housing market areas, the cost of a one-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent was more than a person's total monthly SSI income (Technical Assistance Collaborative & the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities Housing Task Force, 1999).

Presently, most states, including Michigan, have not replaced the old welfare system with an alternative that enables families and individuals to obtain above-poverty employment and to sustain themselves when work is not available or possible.

Check out the statistics yourself, but the bottom line is this:

The benefits of economic growth have not been equally distributed; instead, they have been concentrated at the top of income and wealth distributions. A rising tide does not lift all boats, and in the United States today, many boats are struggling to stay afloat.