| I'll say this as someone who's been evicted twice, the number one reason the vast majority of people end up homeless is because they don't have money. This can happen for a small array of reasons, let's say you're in a bad marriage and your spouse leaves. You simply can't make the rent anymore, you're now homeless. 19 years old, and you're getting into really bad fights with your parents, you're now homeless. Develop a medical issue in your mid-30s which prevents you from working, you're now homeless. In my fantasy world we wouldn't even have evictions, instead a social worker would advise you that you're legally entitled to effectively a dorm of some sort. >In modern western society we have many failsafes that prevent people from becoming totally dislodged from a place of shelter. You're kidding right, when you're released from prison they give you 20 bucks. Awful hard to find housing with $20 you know, especially when you have a criminal record. A ton of people did do things which warranted a sentence, but we make no effort to reintegrate these people. So you did something bad when you were 20, you being 35 years old out on the streets without any hope isn't healing anything. If anything at all you're much more likely to resort to another crime of desperation. |
Your situation is more the former. It's really common and that's what basic safety nets are for.
The longer term folks - serious drug addiction, mental illness, excessive abuse etc. etc. - those are the harder cases.