In the 1930s, homelessness was caused by the lack of work. World
War II provided every available person in the USA a job,
homelessness nearly vanished.
When modern-day homelessness burst onto the American
landscape in the 1980s, we turned to 1930s solutions and opened
emergency shelters. A person received 90 nights rent-free and
expected to leave the shelter between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.
when the person should be at work or looking for work.
If modern-day homelessness were about employment, as in the
1930s, the emergency shelter approach would have at least
decreased the number of homeless. Instead, individual and family
homelessness has steadily increased over the past forty-five years.
That increase is due to the misdiagnosis of modern-day
homelessness. Lack of work is not the only or primary reason for
homelessness, as in the 1930s. Today, several contributing factors
must be understood if we are going to help people out of
homelessness.
Modern-day homelessness can be alleviated and eliminated when
we understand the unique causes, types, and responses to the
diversity found under the “homeless” title.
However, before we explore cause, type, and response, we need to
examine the question of why 263,864 people in Madison County
have stable housing and approximately 275 people do not.
Next, we will examine the Pyramid of Stability, which
will start to answer this question.
HUH Team
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