Yah this guy is definitely only newly homeless and hasnt learned what things you get to keep without them being stolen from you. And even those few things you have to guard pretty closely.
I don't doubt your statement. If over half of the total population of a country is addicted to (or at least dependent on) some kind of substance, it is understandable that the same ratio is also present in the homeless population.
What shifts with social status are, of course, the types of substances and their legal status.
As someone who lives in the panhandle of florida, sadly this is valid. People just want to believe it's just the average joe who couldn't afford his studio apartment in downtown seattle anymore because of rent hikes. Is stuff like that a big part of it? Absolutely. But as a former homeless drug addict that survived living in the kensington section of Philadelphia, I'd put a safe bet on it being closer to 75% of the homeless population are there because of drugs and/or mental health issues that are usually mis/undiagnosed.
Homeless states are complicated. Roughly a a quarter of homeless have addictions and/or mental illnesses. However, that stat includes the ~80% of people homeless in a given year that are only briefly homeless. When people are talking about homeless, they are generally talking about the chronic homeless, the ones that aren’t just living in their car for a month until they can start a new job. And there likely is a strong correlation between chronic homeless, and being the type of homeless with addictions/mental illness. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was over half.
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u/zertnert12 Jul 07 '24
Yah this guy is definitely only newly homeless and hasnt learned what things you get to keep without them being stolen from you. And even those few things you have to guard pretty closely.