Homelessness rates around the country keep rising as the price to live increases. Surprisingly, the homelessness rates in Washington have decreased for the first time since 2010. According to the Seattle Times, “It’s the first time in nine years homelessness has dropped in the state”(Greenstone 2020). As of 2019, homelessness rates across the United States have risen. Washington, Iowa, and Connecticut are the only states that have had a decrease in overall homeless population. While conducting these surveys, they only included certain groups of people. The surveys only included these groups of people: “unsheltered homeless people… in cars, in camps, or in abandoned buildings”(Greenstone 2020). The survey did not include homeless people who live in shelters, or the people who “couch surf”. The article mentioned that they knew if they included those groups in the survey the numbers would be large(Greenstone 2020). In terms of solving or fixing the homelessness problem, the “HUD secretary Ben Carson saying the issue must be addressed ‘by local and state leaders with crisis-like urgency'”(Greenstone 2020).
Poverty is a state of being extremely poor. It’s when someone lacks the financial resources, and the basic personal needs. When someone can’t afford shelter, food, clothes, and hygiene products, and more, they are considered to be in poverty. Homelessness is one of the main consequences of poverty. As the prices to own or rent a home increase, it gets harder for people to be able to afford to live. A lot of people who live in Washington live pay-check to pay-check and those who don’t are upper middle class, the lower class or the homeless. The increasing prices are kicking people and their families out of their homes because they just can’t make enough. This is the case especially in Washington. The prices to live in places like Seattle and Tacoma keep rising.
While learning about poverty in class, I kept thinking about the homelessness in Seattle that’s always mentioned on the news. On King5 news, they often talk about the homeless situation in Seattle. I remember once they talked about how it was so bad they had to ask people to leave or move all of them into one place since they refused shelters. They talked about how it was making Seattle look bad because there was homeless people just everywhere. They were trying to get rid of them but they had no where to go. To think that most of these people are homeless and it’s not necessarily their fault is sad. It’s well known everywhere in Washington how expensive it is to live in Seattle. Some of these homeless people could have been kicked out because they didn’t make enough income. Reading this article and taking notes on lecture in class, I learned poverty is a very serious situation. Whether someone’s poverty situation gets to the extent of homelessness or not, its still a situation that needs to be taken seriously. It also showed me that I am grateful for what I have because not everyone has it.
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Sociology 201 