Homelessness is a global problem. I have not experienced nor photographed all the states of homelessness but know enough to understand the issue will never go away.
The are a lot of cause of homelessness in the world. To borrow from Matthew 24 verse 7 of the New King James version of the Bible, Jesus states, as “nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” These sorrows are constantly playing out on the earth and are the largest source of homelessness.
In the United States there are a wide variety of reasons for homeless, which more likely are worldwide but unobserved because of catastrophic events, like wars.
National Center for State Legislatures report indicates that 7 percent of youth, or 1.5 million children and adolescents, run away each year. There are children who have either run away or are under the control of traffickers and pedophiles in the United States. In the U.S., child trafficking is aggravated by four main factors: the porous southern border, predatory social media use, pornography, and broken families.
Researchers have found that between 31% and 46% of youth exiting foster care experience homelessness by age 26.
A PIT Count (Point-in-Time) by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in January 2023 found the total number of Veterans who experienced homelessness was 35,574 – an increase of 7.4% over January 2022. Breaking this down further, 20,067 Veterans experienced sheltered homelessness, and 15,507 Veterans experienced unsheltered homelessness.
My understanding is derived from six firsthand experiences, along with later activism and photography of the subject from 1983 to1998. Russell Kenndy was the first person I photographed in the state of homelessness. Housing was not his biggest issue.
