why are people homeless? how does it affect us tax payers?

Question

im doing a study on how homless people affect our country and our world really well g2g bye bye

Answer 1

The leading cause of people being homeless is substance abuse and mental illness.

And there is not much we can do about it unless we want to round these people up and incarcerate them 'for their own good.'

Answer 2

There are a few reasons why people become homeless. The most prevelent are mentally ill and drug addicts. These two have a huge expense to taxpayers in emergency responses. Another reason is just bad luck which does happen from time to time but normally the people who suffer from a job loss or buisiness closing will pick themselves up and move on and have a place to live. I know a guy who lived on the streets for 3 months trying to save for a down payment, now lives in a beatiful house and has for 15 years.

Now for the mentally ill. These people will be semi functional to the point that they do not require institutionalation. These people have very poor coping and interpersonal skills and rarely can function on an adult level. It is hard for them to hold a job because of this. They also have very bad money managing skills and are usually targeted by scamist and lose their money quickly if they don't have family to hadle their affairs. So they end up not paying their bills due to blowing their money which leads to them being evicted.

The drug addicts are pretty self explainitory. These people would rather spend their money on drugs than pay their bills which ends them up on the streets. A lot of these people will be both though, drug addicts and mentally ill since both can lead to one another.

The effect on taxpayers is mainly in three areas. Medical, police and humanitarian aid. Medical due to ambulance responses and emergency room treatments. Police due to prowler and other crimes these people might be involved in. Humanitarian because governmental agencies do contribute to homeless shelters and soup kitchens. However very few would complain about the shelters and soup kitchens.

The reason why they are a burden on emrgency services is because they have to respond when 911 is called. An emergency service needs to maintain enough equiment and personel to keep coverage of its base. So if the homeless account for 15% of the call volume that is 15% more personel and equipment need and personel is the biggest part of any budget. Also as I said earlier these people have a hard time paying bills so you can hang up on collecting anything from them as far as medical bills or fines from the police. You can put them in jail but then you still need jailers to look after themand you will need to clothe and feed them. I am a paramedic by trade and I know of one person who acumulated $500,000 in bills in one year, we will never see a cent of that but that is service that the taxpayers had to be provided for. There are cases of people owing a lot more.

Answer 3

You do better studying how employers need to be prosecuted for hiring illegals and subverting paying fair living wages to the legal American citizens. That's how Americans have become homeless! There must be a double standard cause legal poor working class Americans are denied welfare! May birdsnake has some sort of effective means to circumvent the system!

Answer 4

Some are mentally ill, some WANT to be homeless and in some cases those who want help cant get it because you cant get a place to live without income (welfare) and welfare you cant get without an address. It is a screwed up system for the weak and vulnerable.

Answer 5

Don't really know.
Homeless people could draw welfare and live in a house, but they don't.
Wonder why some journalist hasn't asked them why they don't draw welfare and live in a house?
Or has the News Media covered: the "Why"?
Interesting question.