Those who are in poor health, have experienced trauma, or are living in extreme poverty are most at risk of losing their homes, according to a recent report on adult homelessness in the populous US state of California.
According to the California Statewide Study of People Experienced Homelessness, 50% of all unsheltered people in the US, who may or may not have a car to sleep in, reside in California, with 90% citing housing costs as the primary cause of their homelessness.
Following the publication of the new survey on Tuesday, Margot Kushel, director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California in San Francisco and one of the study’s principal investigators, stated that the findings “confirm that far too many Californians experience homelessness because they cannot afford housing.”
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She continued, emphasizing that “people are homeless because their rent is too high,” and that the state’s rapidly rising housing costs are a significant contributor to homelessness. And they have too few options and are also without a cushion.
More than 20% of those who signed rental agreements cited income losses or reductions as the main cause of losing their homes, according to the study.
Therefore, Kushel emphasized, “It wasn’t so much that their housing costs went up as it was that they couldn’t keep up with it.”
African Americans make up only 6% of the general population in the state, but 26% of the homeless population, raising questions about racism in the state, which is also pervasive in the rest of the country.
More than 30% of the adults surveyed in the study also met the criteria for chronic homelessness, which is defined as having a disabling condition and having been homeless for at least one year, or having been homeless four times in the previous three years for a total of more than 12 months.
In the survey, nearly half of the homeless participants said they were unable to work because of their age, health, or disability.
The research includes the results of almost 3,200 surveys and 365 in-depth interviews with adults who were homeless throughout the state between October 2021 and November 2022.
The study, which was commissioned by California Governor Gavin Newsom, is the “largest representative study of homelessness in the United States since the mid-1990s,” according to the study.
The survey also revealed that many people in the state do not have access to housing. The vast majority of respondents said they “face barriers” when trying to rent or buy a home, including things like a bad credit history, discrimination, physical difficulties, or prior evictions.
According to the Biden administration, there are more than one million homeless people in the United States every year, and many more are at risk of losing their homes, even though the actual number is widely believed to be much higher.
According to local press reports, the Annual Homeless Assessment Report shows that Florida, New York, and Washington also had high rates of homelessness last year.
