Why should we have homeless services? Because you or your children could very well become homeless.

Here’s 6 ways normal, hard working folks and their children can and do become homeless in America. Along with each one comes one or more solutions.

Cause #1 — Get a Physical Illness

Serious physical illness and accidents strikes at random like lightening, and when they do they can destroy finances, leave lasting emotional and physical debilitation, and stress family and friendship bonds to the breaking point.

If you are one of the 40 million American’s without health insurance, you could be seriously financially sideswiped by a serious physical malady. But even if you have health insurance, the emotional and physical debilitation that comes along, part and parcel, with illness often slashes income and even makes you unable to work in your former career.

Solutions:

Universal Single Payor Health Insurance A Universal Minimum Basic Income

Cause #2 — Get a Mental Illness

Mental illness, like physical illness, also strikes at random and like lightening.

The National Institute of Mental health says that 1 out of 20 people have a mental illness and 1 out of a 100 people have schizophrenia — a debilitating and degenerative mental illness that emerges in adolescence and young adulthood.

A mental illness does not just harm the person afflicted, it also takes the time and income away from their family members and caretakers. These stresses can push families over financial and emotional thresholds.

The history of mentally ill services in the US is characterized by an initial identification of poor mental illness institutions in the 1950's and then a series of waves of “deinstitutionalization.” If the first or second few waves of deinstitutionalization were improvements on bad institutions, arguably subsequent waves have gone too far and left mentally ill people unsuported. Now 1/3 of homeless people are mentally ill as well as a disproportionate number of prison inmates.

Solutions:

Universal, Community-based Mentally Ill Services Improved Primary Care Mental Illness Services Improved Institutions for Chronically Mentally Ill People

Cause #3 — Get a drug or alcohol addiction

Drug and alcohol addictions come about by accident and can afflict anyone at any age. Is little Billy or Jane going off to college next year? Or maybe had a bout of underage drinking already in high school? What if an addiction developed? What would be the cost to your child, to you, and to your family?

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), in 2009 1 out of 10 people needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol abuse problem.

Addiction can destroy income while simultaneously putting enormous financial stress on the individual and their family or support structure. Moreover the poor judgement around addiction can lead to alienation from family and friends and a enormously raise the risk of homelessness. It is not surprising, then, that 1/3 of people who have become homeless have a drug or alcohol addiction.

Cause #4—Get caught between economic cycles

The economy is like a force of nature, it can knock down your house and put your family on the street.

CNN reported last year that 76% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. If the market moves against your family’s bread winner, if any bad things from the above list happen to your OR A LOVED ONE, you or a family member could be out on the street.

Solutions:

Universal Basic Income “Write a Check” welfare services to keep at risk families housed. Longer Unemployment Insurance Income Protection Insurance Improved Savings Incentives (What? 1.03% a year not doing anything for you?)

Cause #5—Be a solider

As depressing as it is — and it is depressing—often those among us who have served our country in the armed forces end up homeless. 1/3 of homeless people are veterans.

To this someone might say: but they aren’t homeless because they are a vet, they have other problems (even problems on this list such as mental illness and drug or alcohol addiction). This is true. But soldiers have these problems in much higher rates than non-soldiers.

Solutions:

Fight fewer/shorter wars (i.e. win them faster or don’t start them) Provide a minimum basic income for veterans soldiers.

Cause #6—Most likely — a mixture of these.

As you might have guessed, the most likely cause is a mixture of the above 5 causes.

In fact, the homeless population can be broken into two. On the one hand there are people who lost their homes with no other maladies except that they were caught between economic cycles. On the other hand, there are what could be called the Five Thirds.

1/3 Mentally Ill 1/3 Ex-convicts 1/3 Drug or Alcohol Addicts 1/3 Minors (<18) 1/3 Vetrans

There are more than 3 thirds because people are a mixture of them. In a population of homeless people, you might meet a drug addict minor, or a mentally ill veteran, or a mentally ill, ex-convict, alcoholic veteran.

Over all there is no silver bullet to “solve” or “prevent” homelessness. However, since any of us or our children might become homeless during our lives, it is important that we demand that communities and policy makers make homelessness a priority.