Homelessness has increased dramatically under the past two years...

 

File photo of a homeless camp in Los Angeles in 2023. AP. 

Homelessness has increased by 18% this year, which is on top of a 12% increase in 2023. AP. With the new number 23 out of every 10,000 people in the United States are homeless. The increase is being blamed on immigration, a lack of cheap housing and several major natural disasters. Family homelessness has increased by 40%, mostly due to immigration. There is some good news as some cities have reduced their homeless population and the number of homeless veterans has dropped considerably. 

My Comment:

Fairly negative economic news and one that gives lie to the state of the Biden economy. Obviously there wouldn't be so many folks living on the street if our economy was as good as Joe Biden had argued. But a 30% increase in two years is pretty devastating. In total around 770,000 folks in America are homeless, mostly concentrated in our big cities. 

There are, of course, a lot of different kinds of homeless. The most visible group is obviously the bums living in the streets, like in Skid Row in LA. Those folks are the most visible and the cause of most of the problems. They are an extremely hard problem to fact because most of them enjoy the lifestyle and refuse to go to shelters even when they are available due to the rules those places have concerning drug and alcohol abuse. 

These kinds of homeless are also the most violent and mentally ill and the one that normal folks have to fear. Many of them refuse any help and are fine with causing problems for everyone else. Most of these folks would either have been institutionalized or imprisoned in earlier times in this country and the fact that we don't do that anymore is most of the problem. They aren't going to be helped by building affordable housing.

The 2nd group absolutely would be helped by affordable housing, and that's the "couch surfer" group, the temporary homeless that fell on hard times. Maybe they had an emergency and couldn't make their rent, maybe they lost their job or maybe they lost their home due to natural disaster. These folks are the ones hit hardest by the sky-high cost of living and would be the ones we could actually help if we took steps to get housing costs under control. 

It's the 3rd group that is the most frustrating and that's the massive number of illegal aliens that end up homeless. Not every illegal immigrant gets on welfare or steals a job from an American, many of them end up on the streets, which is somehow still better for them than the place they came from. This group has the easiest solution, just deport them and that would fix the problem. Indeed, deporting illegal aliens in general would help as it would not only lower housing costs it would free up jobs for folks at the lower end of the economic classes. 

I do think that this is a problem that could get worse if nothing is done. Housing prices are out of control to the point where it's extremely difficult for a normal person to buy an actual house, and sometimes even just rent an apartment. I know in my area, I'm priced out of buying a home due to both the absurd cost of the home itself and the high interest rates, and I have more than a year's salary saved up. No matter how I try to budget it the cost of a home payment alone would be more than I am paying in my heat included apartment. If things keep going the way things are going entire generations of Americans are going to be priced out of the market...