Homelessness- coming to a neighborhood near you?

This article on CNN's front page caught my attention. We, as providers, hear stories like Patricia's on a daily basis, but I think it's now finally sinking in nationwide that personifying the homeless is not as simple as it used to be. It used to be easy to place the blame on the person experiencing homelessness- to assume that their predicament was somehow a result of some vice, or their failure to really try to improve their lives. No more. The new homeless are not necessarily generationally poor. They're middle class, employed, leading a normal life until some crisis happens.

The flip-side of this is that there is a new kind of judgment taking place. At an annual event for families below 150% of the poverty level we frequently see "nice" cars in the parking lot, and observers have a hard time reconciling appearances with true need. If you became homeless tomorrow, would you look poor?

One thing that we've noticed is that the middle-class newly homeless (or families at risk of becoming homeless) are perhaps even worse equipped to handle the situation than the clients of days past. Why? It's too soon to have any serious research findings on the subject, but I think we've got a pretty good handle on it, anecdotally speaking. For starters, they are less likely to seek services, instead continuing to keep their struggles private, as the woman in the CNN story did. An unfortunate consequence is that many families reach out for help too late- after the foreclosure or eviction notice.

We see many people who have no familiarity or comfort level with the social service system. Even though resources like food stamps and temporary cash assistance are in place to help families just like them, there is still a significant social stigma associated with public benefits.

Lastly, the middle-class poor typically enter the system with much more debt than families that have been subsisting at or below poverty level for an extended period of time. This makes "digging out" a lot more difficult.

I'm not sure how these shifts will affect the social service sector, if at all. It might mean repackaging services under a less traditional/stigmatic name, or conducting more outreach to engage at-risk families much earlier in the continuum of homelessness. Regardless, homelessness is no longer a social problem that can be easily written off. Sphere: Related Content