Alex Berezow has an interesting post at the American Council on Science and Health on the number of homeless people there are in the largest cities in the U. S., both on a total basis and as a percentage of the cities’ populations. As is not terribly surprising New York and Los Angeles have a lot of homeless people. Chicago is a lousy place to be homeless in the winter time.
The city with the largest absolute number of homeless people is New York with about 75,000. The city with the largest number of homeless people per 100,000 population is, oddly enough, Springfield, Massachusetts. Even when adjusting for population the bluer the state, the more homeless people there are.
It looks to me as though city size, climate, and moral hazard were all factors.
I vacationed in Seattle and it was remarkable how many and how visible the homeless and drug addicted are. Lines in the park for needle exchange, resting with their backpacks on the steps of malls.
Here in Lincoln there are so few I know most of them by name, (mugshots). They are mostly alcoholic, mentally ill or both. City mission will gladly take them in but won’t allow them to drink, which is why they prefer the relative freedom of the streets.
Not sure where he got his data from.
“This is survival in its most basic form, and Lyons is not alone in his struggle to find shelter. Authorities estimate that Houston ranks fourth in the country in terms of homeless numbers, with more than 40,000 people per year on the streets (counting the homeless is as harrowing a task as it sounds, and the count is done only once a year). That’s as many people on the streets of Houston as Austin and Dallas’s homeless populations combined.”
http://www.houstonpress.com/news/houstons-hidden-homeless-live-under-bridges-in-the-shadows-out-of-sight-and-mind-6601230
Steve
Is there anyone more authoritative than the unnamed authority?