Homelessness in Young Americans

The Cost of Being American has reached it's breaking point . With the housing market on a tittering scale. The rise of homelessness in Young Americans is beyond alarming, It is a depressing reflection of what the state of our country really is in.

Before we can get an understanding of why gaining affordable housing is not as attainable as some would assume. We have to understand what being homeless means. In which it would be a harsh reality for most.

What does being homeless really mean?

experiencing homelessness includes:

"An individual or family who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, such as those living in emergency shelters, transitional housing, or places not meant for habitation, or

An individual or family who will imminently lose their primary nighttime residence (within 14 days), provided that no subsequent housing has been identified and the individual/family lacks support networks or resources needed to obtain housing, or

Unaccompanied youth under 25 years of age, or families with children and youth who qualify under other Federal statutes, such as the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, have not had a lease or ownership interest in a housing unit in the last 60 or more days, have had two or more moves in the last 60 days, and who are likely to continue to be unstably housed because of disability or multiple barriers to employment, or

An individual or family who is fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, has no other residence, and lacks the resources or support networks to obtain other permanent housing"

So why are there so many young adults staying in shelters, on the streets or from hotel to hotel just for safe lodging for the evening?

I had an interesting conversation with a young man 26 years old after I got off from work at around 1:30 in the morning .

He was standing in front of the transitional homeless housing on the corner and I asked him was he staying in transitions, he said no I stay in a duplex around the corner that's abandoned that a bunch of us that can't get in the transition stay there at night.

so I asked him why are you standing on the corner right now? Just breaking conversation, and he said well my bag got stolen while I was there the other day so I haven't really been back since then. So I asked him if he was looking for a job he said yes so I told him a few places that were hiring and cooling my job and he said "yeah that's all well and good but it's so hard out here to focus on what you need to and the things that you have to do like looking for a job when the first thing you worry about waking up in the morning is where I'm going to lay my head down at the end of the night ".

Being in that position myself once before trying to reset my life. It never dawned me that those are your top 5 concerns every morning before you do anything else. Then food and hygiene.

So many people are judgmental without even knowing the full scale of each and every homeless person situation and that's a harsh stereotypical ideology that we as people have to get out of.

I watch people daily come to the restaurant I work at just to buy meals and sitting there just to have somewhere safe to be out of the elements until they can figure out where they're going next and it's sad.

The amount of Young Americans that are homeless at this moment is an unprecedented number and it stems from a variety of situations and each and every last one of their backgrounds. whether it comes from being runaways from group homes since they were 16 ,being children that run away from home of emotional abuse and domestic violence.

Being caught in the sex trafficking game on drug addiction, and even for a lot of them dealing with heavy mental health issues. We could go on forever with a number of reasons why we have so many young Americans that are homeless but putting up the statistics and numbers is not going to solve the situation. These are the same people we are going to need to carry our elders and push our country forward, so what can we do to combat the homelessness in Young Americans and help motivate them to rebuild the country that is slowly deteriorating?

Once again living in America being in the land of the free isn't seeming to be so free anymore.

Signing off J Ghost