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Causes of Homelessness

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Homelessness

Part of the book series: Topics in Social Psychiatry ((TSPS))

Abstract

A growing body of evidence points to a disturbing fact: A substantial number of people in the United States are without homes. A national study estimated that in 31 medium-sized and large cities, an average of more than 7,000 people are homeless, including 60,000 people in New York City.4 Current nationwide estimates are controversial; figures range from 250,000 to 3 million homeless people,3,5–10 with 2 million the most frequently cited figure. Although these estimates are imprecise, far more people are homeless today than in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Home is the sanctuary where the healing is. ... Nothing brings as quickly to mind the horror of natural upheaval, civil strife or war as the picture of the “homeless.” The deprivation of the security of home is the worst of the mass tragedies.

—Walter Cronkite 1

These causes have roots at the very core of our American life, in our industrial system, in education ... in family relations, in the problems of racial and immigration adjustment, and in the opportunity offered or denied by society. ...

—Nels Anderson 2

The homeless are homeless, you might say, by choice.

—Ronald Reagan 3

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, 63121, USA

    Gary A. Morse

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  1. Gary A. Morse
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Research Institute of San Francisco, Institute of Epidemiology and Behavioral Medicine, Alcohol Research Group, 2000 Hearst Avenue, Berkeley, California, 94709, USA

    Marjorie J. Robertson Ph.D.

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, and San Fernando Valley Program in Psychiatry, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, 90024, USA

    Milton Greenblatt M.D.

  3. Department of Psychiatry, Olive View Medical Center, Sylmar, California, 91342-1495, USA

    Milton Greenblatt M.D.

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Morse, G.A. (1992). Causes of Homelessness. 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_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0679-3_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-0681-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-0679-3

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