Homeless People on Twitter

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service. It allows users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters known as tweets. Tweets are displayed on the writer's profile page and delivered to people following the writer known as followers. Message writers can restrict delivery to those in their circle of follower/friends or allow public access. Twitter has been written about thousands of times. So who cares about another article? Please read on....

The invisible people are on Twitter! Not people from outer space or sci-fi, but people who survive right here on earth. Believe it! Hardlynormal is one such individual. His bio says, “Just a hardly normal guy trying to navigate through an abnormal world by helping others.” ABC News Detroit did a story on Hardlynormal’s mission - One Man’s Mission against Homelessness, which can be found on his blog. He has more than 4,000 followers on Twitter. One of today’s tweets was “just asked to visit Homeless Prenatal Program http://www.homelessprenatal.org in SF, wish we didn't need such services, glad they are here,” and another “After working his entire life Jim should be settling into retirement. Instead, he's living in a tent in woods of Greensboro http://invppl.tv.” These are people we all use to see on trains, subways, buses, going to work, etc. Then..................one day they had no job or home, and we didn’t see them anymore. Once on the street, the people we greeted, smiled at or nodded toward no longer existed. They became invisible as we walk around them, pass them and avoid them. You hear comments all the time, “Look at that man in the doorway.” The reply, “What man? OH him, I didn’t notice. What about him?”

How many people are actually homeless? The number of homeless people is difficult to determine because estimates differ depending on the process used. Numbers also fluctuate significantly depending on whether a measure is taken on a single night or is extrapolated to a given year. According to an estimate made by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, annual number of homeless in America estimates between 2.3 and 3.5 million people. According to a study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an estimated 744,313 people experienced homelessness in one night in January 2005. Generally, homelessness is defined as a person who "lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence," according to pbs.org. Extents of 56% of them were living in shelters and transitional housing and, 44% were unsheltered. Former Republican vice-president candidate Sarah Palin’s state of Alaska, almost bankrupt state of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington State, and nation’s capitol Washington, D.C. have the highest rates of homelessness, according to a study released in 2007 by The National Alliance to End Homelessness.

A March 2009 Time.com article reported that before the financial and home foreclosure crisis hit full stream, the number of homeless children in America reached as many as 1.5 million children between 2005 – 2006. That alarming number was according to a report by The National Center on Family Homelessness that estimates that one in every 50 American children was homeless during those years. 1/3 of the nation’s homeless populations are families with children.

According to Veterans Affair approximately 1/3 of the adult homeless population served their country in the military. Existing population calculate approximately about 131,000 male and female Veterans are homeless on any given night. Almost twice as many experience homelessness at some point during the course of a year. The number of homeless male and female Vietnam era Veterans are considered near homeless or at risk because of their poverty, lack of support from family and friends, and dismal living conditions in cheap hotels or in overcrowded or substandard housing. That’s greater than the number of military who died during that war, and a small number of Desert Storm veterans are also appearing in the homeless population. Continuing, the Veterans Affair overview noted roughly all homeless Veterans are male stating that about three % are women. The huge preponderance are single, and nearly all come from poor, disadvantaged backgrounds. Homeless Veterans are inclined to be older and better educated than homeless non-Veterans. Comparable to the general population of homeless adult males, approximately 45% of homeless Veterans suffer from mental illness with substantial overlap; to some extent more than 70% suffer from alcohol or other drug abuse problems. More or less 56% are African American or Hispanic.