Every attempt to address homelessness devolves into a discussion about alcohol and drug addiction, yet The Seattle Times has reported that fewer than 50% of people without homes are addicts. The 2018 report from King County’s annual one-night count of homeless people shows 21% of those interviewed self-reported substance abuse as the cause of their homelessness. I’ve worked with drug and alcohol abusers with high-level positions in banking, retail, law enforcement, nonprofits and public service who lived in fancy houses with manicured lawns.

When I read my neighbors’ comments on Nextdoor.com about how to deal with a drug-addicted woman living in her car in one of our local parks, I think about those who lost their homes and jobs in the 2008 economic meltdown and were without resources when the boom began in 2011. I think about people, like me, who lost their jobs, were deemed too old to be hired into new ones and, unlike me, had no connections or external resources to fall back on. I think about the people who are working multiple jobs and still can’t make enough money to rent a home. I think about the people I know in their 40s and 50s who are living in the modern-day equivalent of rooming houses.

Editor's note: This is the first of a two-part series on homelessness. Read part two here.

Sarah Allen Benton’s “Understanding the High Functioning Alcoholic” dispels the widely-presumed correlation between addiction and homelessness and raises some questions in my mind: What percentage of people without homes develop substance abuse problems after becoming homeless? Why are some substance abusers homeless while others are not? What, then, is the difference between an alcoholic or drug addict with a home and one without?