Houselessness is a problem that the United States can’t seem to get right. The wealthiest country on the planet also has one of the highest global rates of unhoused people seen in modern history. Solving the problem is admittedly exceptionally difficult. Yet as the country struggles to find a solution, real people suffer.
The Impact of Houselessness on the Individual
Everything else notwithstanding, the impact of houselessness on the person experiencing it is ultimately the most urgent element of the situation. The physical risks of houselessness tend to be straightforward. Naturally, exposure to the elements can carry significant physical risk — particularly in situations where there is extreme weather.
There is also hunger, thirst, and inadequate access to healthcare and basic hygiene support. In short, a long list of basic needs that houseless people can’t always, or even ever, meet on their own. But what does living in this condition do for the mental state of someone experiencing it?
Chronic Anxiety
Anxiety makes sense when your basic needs aren’t being met. Houseless people have high rates of anxiety extending both from their lack of resources and the frequent physical and emotional threats that they experience routinely.
Houseless people also frequently experience external threats of legal repercussions. While it is not illegal to be houseless, many things that houseless people are forced to do — including sleeping, or relieving themselves in public — are considered crimes. This only adds to the anxiety that many houseless people already experience.
Insomnia
Houseless people also often struggle to get regular, high-quality sleep. The reason for this is straightforward. The places where they are trying to sleep are often unsafe, or uncomfortable. Factor in noise, light pollution, and the general anxiety associated with houselessness and a clearer picture emerges.
Unsheltered living is unconducive to many of life’s most basic needs, including sleep.
Addiction
Addiction and houselessness frequently go hand in hand. Sometimes the chicken precedes the egg on this one — or the egg precedes the chicken — but regardless of which came first, a significant number of houseless people suffer from alcoholism or drug addiction.
Not only does this further jeopardize their physical and emotional health, but it makes it harder to escape houselessness.
The Effects on the Community
It’s harder to account for how houselessness impacts the wider community — particularly in the context of mental health. Houselessness may create a sense of general fear in the wider population. Some will feel anxious that a few bad choices or unfortunate life events could see them unsheltered. Others will worry about public health and safety.
From an infrastructural perspective, houselessness can take a lot out of a community. They strain the healthcare system. They require the use of extensive police and public safety resources. And, of course, the social programs that help sustain houseless people’s existence are expensive. It’s often tax money that keeps the shelters open.
These are all good reasons for the general population to be uncomfortable with the idea of houselessness in their communities, but it doesn’t quite touch on the broader issue. Communities are only as healthy as their weakest element. A city, state, or country that allows for high levels of unhoused people has a fundamental flaw that could negatively impact anyone eventually.
Truth Be Told
Truth be told, the majority of people experiencing houselessness were already suffering from mental illness or addiction, to begin with. In fact, these are usually the reasons behind their inability to support themselves.
About thirty percent of houseless people are mentally ill before they become unsheltered, and another fifty percent suffer from addictive tendencies — the addiction itself being a form of mental illness.
Can it be said, then, that houselessness is causing mental health problems?
Research indicates that it can. All of the symptoms described above can create or exacerbate mental health problems. Extreme stress is a particularly strong indicator of future struggles with mental health. In fact, many people experience mental health crises for the first time in their lives when they go away to college.
If challenging exams can trigger episodes of mental illness, it should be no surprise that houselessness can as well.
Tackling houselessness may seem impossible, but it has been done successfully in other parts of the world. Finland has under one thousand houseless people currently living in their country. Compared to the United States’ estimated . . .
Well, hold on! The United States has a much higher population than Finland.
Right you are. And the number we were going to say, by the way, was 600,000 houseless people currently living in the United States. But it’s true, the US has over 300 million people, whereas Finland has just five million.
Even to scale, however, the proportions are quite out of whack. It didn’t always use to be that way. Back in the 1980s, Finland had more than 20,000 houseless people living on the streets. How did they reverse the problem so effectively in such a relatively short amount of time?
Finland made shelter an inalienable right. People in Finland are legally entitled to basic care that keeps them alive and healthy.
The United States has a similar law enshrined in the constitution all the way back in the 1940s, in which it recognized shelter as falling within the perimeters of rights already outlined in the Bill of Rights. The difference, however, is that Finland has taken an exceedingly proactive approach to ensure that everyone has access to the help that they need.
One of the challenges of taking advantage of services for houselessness in the United States is that it requires skills many houseless people may not have. They need to know how and when to get to the shelter. How and when to line up for food.
Even if their community has robust social services — and there remains a decent chance that it doesn’t — they may lack the ability to take advantage of them because of their mental illness or addiction.
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This content is made possible by Andrew Deen.
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