Home is where the heart is," the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder once famously said. It is as relevant today as it was in 23 AD. Since then, it has been printed, carved and painted above the thresholds of countless houses.
But what if there is no house to make a home? What if there is no threshold to cross? This is a reality for anywhere between half a million and one million people living in the U.S. That's roughly the population of San Francisco, California. That number applies solely to U.S. homelessness, but homelessness is a global issue. If you broaden your perspective to encompass the whole world, you're looking at around one hundred million homeless people, and 1.6 billion people living in inadequate housing. Inadequate housing is considered to be any housing unit that has severe physical problems, such as flaws in plumbing, heating, electricity or structural soundness. These housing units are often dangerous and sometimes fatal to live in.
In the suburban area that is Tredyffrin Township, you may not have noticed the epidemic of homelessness in your everyday life. A reason for that is because homelessness is most noticeable in overpopulated areas such as cities. If you travel just two hours away to New York City, the amount of homeless people explodes to over 75,000, condensed within an area of just over 300 square miles. Although many seek employment in big cities, maintaining a good life is hard since the cost of living is so high compared to the minimum wage. For those not completely homeless, it is estimated that almost half of the total worldwide urban population live in inadequate housing, commonly referred to as slums.
In many of the world's richest countries, homelessness is on the rise. Many factors can contribute to falling down the downward spiral that leads to homelessness, but substance abuse is the leading cause. A shocking half of the world lives on less than $2.50 a day. This amount may seem drastically low to us, but the sad reality is that some of the poorest people on the planet work jobs making the clothes we wear and the bricks that build our houses. In the U.S. the average price of a two-bedroom rental apartment is $1,545 per month, while working a 50-hour work week (e.g. 9am-7pm, five days a week) at minimum wage only guarantees you $1,150 per month before buying food, clothes or any other necessities.
Although this situation seems bleak, there are many charities and projects funded by different companies and governments to help ease the pain of homelessness. One effective project is the Tiny House movement, where volunteers build tiny houses (usually just under 200 square feet) on wheels so that they are able to be parked and moved easily, or stationed in a Tiny House Neighborhood.
Homelessness is an issue that circles the globe. It is a life that an unfortunate number of people have to endure. With no viable end in sight to this dilemma, one can only hope to be informed of the severity of the issue. To quote Pliny the Elder once more, "In these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain."
References
Admin. “Global Homelessness Statistics.”Homeless World Cup, Homeless World Cup, 11 Aug. 2017,
homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/.
McCarthy, Niall. “The U.S. Cities With The Largest Homeless Populations [Infographic].”Forbes, Forbes
Magazine, 1 Dec. 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/11/25/the-u-s-cities-where-the-largest
-homeless-pop-infographic/#33c2f5da4dde.
“Pliny the Elder.”Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 25 Oct. 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Elder.
Raymond, Jaime, et al. “Inadequate and Unhealthy Housing.”Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 Jan. 2011,www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml
/su6001a4.htm.
“San Francisco Population 2017.”San Francisco Population 2017 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs),
worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/san-francisco-population/.
Xie, Jenny. “10 tiny house villages for the homeless across the U.S.”Curbed, 18 July 2017, www.curbed.com/maps
/tiny-houses-for-the-homeless-villages.
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