Abstract
The rapid increase in homelessness among families during the 1980s is the result of an increase in the number of low-income families and a decrease in the amount of low-income housing in the United States.1 By 1983, there were 25% more families living below the poverty line than in 1979,2 whereas at the same time fewer low-cost housing units were available.3 In conjunction with these structural changes, service providers began to report that they were seeing homeless families in significant numbers for the first time since the Great Depression and that their numbers seemed to be growing.4–5 By 1985, there were about 11.6 million low-income renter households competing for 4.7 million low-rent units, for a shortage of 7 million units.3 With such a shortage of affordable housing, families that cannot get into low-cost rental units either pay more, double up with family or friends, or become homeless. As a result, homelessness among families continues to be a pervasive problem in the United States.6
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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McChesney, K.Y. (1992). Homeless Families. In: Robertson, M.J., Greenblatt, M. (eds) Homelessness. Topics in Social Psychiatry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0679-3_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0679-3_19
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