They also define in as an individual or family who has a primary nighttime residence that is a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill), an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized, or a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, regular sleeping accommodations for human beings. It is estimated that one billion people in the world lack adequate housing, including 100 million who are completely homeless. It is also estimated that, on any one night, 750,000 Americans will be without shelter and that approximately 3.0 million Americans will be homeless at some time during the year. Approximately 50% are in families -- 38% are children. 5.4 million families are at risk for homelessness due to a lack of affordable housing -- paying more than 50% of their income for rent.
Two trends are largely responsible for the rise in homelessness over the past 15-20 years. The first is that there is a growing shortage of affordable rental housing. The second is that there is a simultaneous increase in poverty. It not only affects people who are actually homeless, but it also affects the people who aren't homeless because of the money that is taken out of their checks in order to assist people.
.
The homeless people should be helped if society wants this social problem to stop. During the late 80's many Americans, frustrated by the lack of progress in solving the homeless problem, had become tired of caring about a situation that appeared to have no solution. Americans were tired of confronting outstretched palms on every block, tired of stepping over bodies sleeping in doorways, and tired of looking for a park bench that was not already occupied by a homeless person.