The drama of thepulled”, the number of homeless that increases in the main cities of the United States, questions the official statistics and the welfare policies in the Biden era. Hundreds of camps fill public spaces from Seattle to Washington, and from Chicago to Los Angeles. “It is a space where we survive,” explains Michelle, who lives on the outskirts of Seattle in a building occupied by people who lost their homes after the post-pandemic crisis.
Piles of trash and torn tarps surrounded trailers and mobile homes parked near train tracks south of the western US seaside city. “I’m sick, DO NOT wake me up”, “I have pepper spray”, and “I have pepper spray!”don’t tow my house!” with some of the handwritten signs to prevent eviction. The Seattle City Council has been warning them since the end of July that they are “ordered to remove all personal property.”
A lots of sleep in abandoned cars or trailers. “We have no home. We hate it,” admits John, 32. The federal government does not include in its statistics of homeless people the “dumped” who live in tents and trailers, a methodology that academics and legislators point out as defective.
And getting the figure right has taken on a new urgency, as rising living and housing costs push tens of thousands into the streets and makeshift shelters. The tents are now spread out on the sidewalks and green spaces in many major American cities, and violent clashes between evictions and the government appear to have increased. “Current statistics give Congress a false image of the true magnitude of the problem”, marks Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.
Data
“We need to have accurate data if we are going to provide accurate solutions.” For years, various NGOs have pressured the government to improve its statistics and expand shelters. “It is a monumental task, communities may not find all homeless people, but we must make a constant counting effort to assess whether homelessness is rising across the country”, says Shantae Goodloe, spokesperson for HUD.
“Broadening the definition of homelessness doesn’t solve the problem, but it does quantify the number of people who live in precarious housing situations”, he adds. For those thrown out, the gap between politics and reality has meant painful choices.
As they spent their last nights in camp, they had no idea where they would go next. However, they knew they would not be reunited with their five children and John’s mother and sister at a local homeless shelter. When the family arrived in Seattle, there weren’t enough beds so that everyone could stay together on the premises. They’d split up ever since, and would stay separate until the dropouts found a place big enough for them to afford.
“The answer we have now is not enough”, acknowledges Marvin Futrell, 57, who lives with 55 other people in a settlement in California. The former sailor is a beneficiary of a social plan.
Alert
Now volunteers and community workers walk the streets and count the number of homeless people they spot. The results are combined with the total population in shelters for homeless people in a region. And other government agencies, such as the US Census Bureau and the Department of Education, also contribute their measurements for cross-referencing.
“HUD data is only reaching a fraction of people,” says Samuel Carlson, research and outreach manager for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. “It is not the best measure, because they are counting once a month,” adds Jack Tsai, professor and dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “We don’t even look at per capita or the proportion of the total community without shelter”.
A 2021 review by the US Government Accountability Office criticized the Housing department for failing to provide its affiliates with programs that anticipate conflict amid the pandemic. And subsequent inflation has worsened the situation. Rents are going up in every US city.
“Every time we dedicate more hours to work to be able to pay rent. And you have to earn like three times the rent, and have the first and last deposit. It’s hard,” complains Shane, one of the “thrown” that he was able to rent an apartment again after half a year living with his family in a trailer. “We told our children that it was a trip and that we would soon have a house again,” she adds. A global drama that surprises the northern country with an increase of 12% in the last year.
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