(This story was originally published in The Elevator in June, 2023.)

Camps of tents and bundles of litter can be found tucked in Oregon’s urban areas, often spotted near highways or sidewalks. Passerbyers often notice these while driving or walking down the street, quick to divert their gaze.

In Clackamas county, there are an estimated 410 people experiencing homelessness as of January this year. That number may sound relatively small, but that doesn’t diminish the overall issue that homelessness is.

People need to unlearn the stereotypes of how homeless people are just lazy drug addicts who refuse to get a job, since that notion serves to shift the blame away from the real problems causing homelessness.

For this issue to be addressed and healed, more people will need to understand how homelessness is caused by multiple intersecting issues, such as the high cost of housing and how certain groups of people can be predisposed to poverty based on social factors.

Substance Abuse

One of the issues surrounding the lack of systems in place to help the homeless is how they are often viewed as moral failures because they are unable to find work, often have substance abuse issues, and or have mental health problems.

According to the American Addiction Center, one-third of homeless individuals are struggling with a substance addiction, and two-thirds of those individuals have suffered from addiction prior to becoming unhoused.

Substance abuse can be both a cause and a result of homelessness. With nothing else to turn to, people may start taking drugs or drink often as an attempt to cope with untreated mental or physical conditions.

Later on, users may become unable to continue to afford their addiction and enter withdrawal, which can be dangerous for themselves and other people around them.

Difficulty paying rent and bills might also result from untreated costly addictions, they might also be unable to pay for rehab services. Family or friends may also reluctantly distance themselves from their struggling relatives because substance users are often viewed as inherently bad people, and not as someone struggling.

Who’s Getting Affected?

Homelessness is a large problem, but it doesn’t tend to affect just anyone. There are certain groups more prone to homelessness because of social and economic statuses.

Ethnic or racial minorities have higher rates of being unhoused due to difficulty getting higher paying jobs or coming from more poverty stricken areas, giving them less opportunities. Black people specifically account for 37% of the homeless population in the US, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Indigenous Americans also have high rates of homelessness.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness also shows It’s not uncommon that LGBTQ+ minors may face homelessness because of unaccepting families or communities. Said minors may run away to avoid abuse, or have been kicked out and disowned because of being queer. 

Veterans are also at higher risk of becoming homeless after returning from tours because of the minimal care for returning veterans’ mental health or living situation. One in 10 homeless individuals in the US are veterans, according to the US Department of Veterans affairs.

People with overlapping identities are often further marginalized, for example, half of those homeless veterans are Black or Latino, a disproportionate percentage compared to the small size of those communities in this country as a whole.

Family members and friends may also feel distanced from returning veterans because of PTSD or disabilities their relatives may have acquired. Returning veterans may also not have anywhere to return to, which is another part of this problem.

Disabled non-veterans can often face similar treatment regarding being cared for because they require more accommodations. Costs of medical care can also put people in tight situations.

None of this is to say that only people who fall under one or more of those groups can become homeless, but it is a reminder of how intersectionality matters, and that those marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by these problems.

Why does this matter? Discrimination towards these groups can discourage progress towards building systems to help the homeless because of the disproportionate amount of minorities that become unhoused. This is not the only roadblock in the way of ending homelessness, but it is a pillar of it.