Presenter Information

Kaene Soto, University of San Diego

Description

According to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, 552,000 Americans experienced homelessness in 2018. Homelessness has been a long standing issue in the United States, seeing little to no improvement over the past five years. Furthermore, 88,000 individuals experienced long-term homelessness during the calendar year. The homelessness problem is magnified here in San Diego, where the county marks the fourth highest homeless population in the country at around 8,500 according to the same study. Societal factors along with the state of the economy are generally the first causes of the issue presented by those looking deeper. An epidemic that is often overlooked by much of the population today is the breakdown of the family unit within the US. According to the 2017 US Census Bureau, 25% of children under the age of eighteen are living with either a single parent mother or father. This is not a new trend, but instead the culmination of a steady decrease in the importance of a dual-parent household over the years. Children being raised in these single parent environments are exposed to various dangers and risks like exponential rises in dropout and crime rates when compared to their dual-parent counterparts. This raises an interesting question of how such a theme affects the homeless rate down the line. In this presentation, we seek to analyze how rates of single parent households compare to the rate of homelessness in counties across the United States.

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Homelessness & the Breakdown of the Family Unit

According to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, 552,000 Americans experienced homelessness in 2018. Homelessness has been a long standing issue in the United States, seeing little to no improvement over the past five years. Furthermore, 88,000 individuals experienced long-term homelessness during the calendar year. The homelessness problem is magnified here in San Diego, where the county marks the fourth highest homeless population in the country at around 8,500 according to the same study. Societal factors along with the state of the economy are generally the first causes of the issue presented by those looking deeper. An epidemic that is often overlooked by much of the population today is the breakdown of the family unit within the US. According to the 2017 US Census Bureau, 25% of children under the age of eighteen are living with either a single parent mother or father. This is not a new trend, but instead the culmination of a steady decrease in the importance of a dual-parent household over the years. Children being raised in these single parent environments are exposed to various dangers and risks like exponential rises in dropout and crime rates when compared to their dual-parent counterparts. This raises an interesting question of how such a theme affects the homeless rate down the line. In this presentation, we seek to analyze how rates of single parent households compare to the rate of homelessness in counties across the United States.

 

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