>There is a strong selection bias here: homeless people who are addicts or suffer from mental health issues are significantly less likely to be on a computer writing interesting articles of their experience.
One interesting thing also is #3, why are veterans homeless? PTSD?
There is a strong selection bias here: homeless people who are addicts or suffer from mental health issues are significantly less likely to be on a computer writing interesting articles of their experience.
I volunteered at a soup kitchen in SF a number of years ago. At the orientation meeting, the director said nearly all homeless fit into one of these categories:
1. Mentally ill
2. Addicted to drugs
3. Veterans (Gulf War, Vietnam)
4. Down-on-their-luck families (debt, sudden medical bills, lost job, eviction, etc.)
He said #4 category was the smallest, and these families typically got out of the situation within a year or two at most. A 'Pursuit of Happyness' type situation.
The other problems are much less tractable. The distribution of time spent on the streets was strongly bimodal: people were either on the streets for <2 years, or for decades.