This analysis ignores the fact that homelessness itself is by and large the primary cause of mental health issues and drug addiction. It only takes a few missed paychecks before most people would end up on the street.
I'm not sure if I am ignoring it? There should be a housing option of last resort for people, full stop. The cause and effect between mental health and housing should be irrelevant when we solve for housing.
~60% of Americans can't handle a surprise expense of $1k.
"A few" missed paychecks is generally going to be more than a $1k disruption.
My understanding is lots of places have relatively little protections for tenants. Once you're behind on your rent, how are people in this position going to catch up?
When I talked to people in shelters before that was literally the top reason they were there. Oftentimes it starts from car trouble or a health episode causing loss of income. Without friends or family that can take them in they go to a shelter if they can (those with pets oftentimes go directly to the streets or their cars). Many are able to find employment again soon but many don’t and a downward spiral begins quickly. Somewhere around 30-40% of Americans cannot afford an emergency $1000 expense and it’s probably only going to go higher.
> Somewhere around 30-40% of Americans cannot afford an emergency $1000 expense.
This oft-reported statistic is wrong. It's based on a survey that simply concluded that they wouldn't necessarily pull that amount from savings to meet an emergency expense. That doesn't mean they can't afford it or don't have more savings than that.
You're right that the question they used is a bit vague, but there is a ton of other data in there that points to affordability as the main cause e.g.
"Nearly a quarter of Americans have no emergency savings"
and:
"Sixty percent of Americans are uncomfortable with their level of emergency savings — 31 percent are very uncomfortable, and 29 percent are somewhat uncomfortable."
Depends on the country and its support systems. But there are plenty of stories of rapid decline, even in well run countries. A bad divorce followed by some bad decisions and suddenly you realise you have nowhere else to go but the streets.
The "one missed paycheck away" is cited a lot, but it's not entirely false, if a bit of a hyperbole.
The majority of Americans (recent estimates I believe are around 60%) have no savings, and live paycheck to paycheck. So while not exactly "one missed paycheck away" it's pretty close. More accurate would be to say "Most Americans are one crisis away..."
Median weekly earnings for full-time workers in the US was $1,196 in Q2 - so, half of Americans make even less than that (~4,700/month). That's not a lot, and in a lot of areas of the country, that doesn't leave much room to save much of anything, especially if you have kids and need childcare.
Going off the BLS consumer expenditure survey from 2023 (most recent one I could find), average spent on housing was $25k/year or 2119/month, almost half the median monthly earnings. Just housing. Factor in food, transportation, healthcare, utilities and it's not hard to see how people can, and are, struggling, and are effectively one mishap from falling too far behind to catch up.
Although Median household income in the US is the more relevant figure, especially for things like housing costs, and that's at ~80k.
While most Americans don't have "emergency savings" (heck, I don't), most of the credible studies more realistically peg it as 25% of American adults or 1 in 4.
Yeah fair enough, household income paints a better picture.
Even so, $80k household isn't a pretty picture with today's housing and food costs except for the most LCoL areas, and in those the income is going to be considerably lower. To afford the US today, we need to be closer to $80k+ individually rather than for the whole household.
The median American has $5400 in savings. It varies, but people who don’t have a good support network can fall off the rails quickly, depending on there you live. Florida unemployment pays $32-275/week.
This is why you see so many homeless veterans. They often end up geographically separated from family and see relationships weaken due to time and distance.
Whenever someone says “mental health” as a causative factor in a social problem, that’s saying “don’t know, wont fix”
Having lived through this, let me just say, directly: fuck you.
There is no support system in this nation. Support of the most basic kind is predicated on impossible things, like giving up addictions or proving you're worthy of Jesus' love. It's conditional on race, religion, sexual orientation, you name it.
And so many, SO VERY MANY are just right at the edge of having a Michael Douglass-in-Falling Down kind of day. People that think like you do clearly haven't dealt with the active and ongoing bullshit of living day to day, hand to mouth, without shelter, without being clean.
Honestly I don't care about your opinion, but I will take one more opportunity to say fuck you.
In similar spirit to what dang posted in reply to you a few months ago: we empathize with your experience and can understand you feeling this way, but we need you to avoid expressing your feelings like this on HN.
Rather than fulminating and attacking other community members, which is clearly against the guidelines, please think of a way you can draw on your experiences to educate others who may not share your experiences and thus may not be aware of the reality for people in this situation.
It's true that their comment broke the guidelines, but in fairness your comment lacked substance, and qualifies as a shallow dismissal, which is also against the guidelines, and is ultimately the reason why it was so upsetting to that commenter. Please try to make comments more substantive in future.
The US Federal Government spends over $3 TRILLION on social services. US states collectively spend around $1 TRILLION on social services.
This is what's available just in my state:
- temporary housing
- free drug treatment programs
- free addiction services
- free food at hundreds of food shelves that also offer other amenities.
- free public transportation
- free and low cost job training
- free and low cost pharmaceuticals and medicine
I've never been homeless, because in several instances, I've actually used social services to survive and get back on my feet because that's why they're there. People complaining there is no support system are either willfully ignorant these programs even exist, or are just too lazy to take advantage of them. And I don't remember ANYBODY in ANY of the non-profit, state funded or state run offices asking me about my race or sexuality before they offered to help me.
I honestly don't know what you're on about man, but saying there is no support system is pretty crazy to hear someone say.
Quite candidly for a lot of people whether or not there's enough "support" is just a matter of looking at outcomes. Are outcomes bad? Then (to some people) there is self-evidently not enough support.
Maybe the dissonance could be explained by being in different states? I can totally imagine social workers in some localities imposing their personal or religious beliefs on people needing help...
