{"id":13639,"date":"2019-12-11T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-12-11T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=13639"},"modified":"2022-10-09T07:12:12","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T11:12:12","slug":"a-different-kind-of-homelessness-in-rural-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/a-different-kind-of-homelessness-in-rural-america\/","title":{"rendered":"A Different Kind of Homelessness in Rural America"},"content":{"rendered":"
There\u2019s a myth about homelessness: that if an area has a problem with it, it\u2019s obvious.<\/p>\n
The public may not do much to help, but they can at least see homeless people are there, sleeping in tents under bridges or panhandling at intersections. If those signs aren\u2019t there, we assume the community is free from homelessness, and put it out of our minds.<\/p>\n
Rural homelessness doesn\u2019t look like urban homelessness.<\/strong><\/em> It looks like people living in cramped cars, couch surfing at the mercy of friends and family, and staying in motels. Instead of sleeping under bridges, they may sleep in abandoned farm buildings or in the woods. They don\u2019t panhandle, because it wouldn\u2019t do much good, and the nearest shelter may be dozens of miles away.<\/p>\n If homeless people are invisible, rural homeless people are even more so.<\/p>\n As of 2018, rural homeless people made up 15 percent<\/a> of the nation\u2019s total homeless population. This figure is likely to be an underestimation, as homeless people in rural areas are difficult to count. One in three<\/a> rural Americans say homelessness is a problem in their communities. Truly problematic is the fact that these areas\u2019 politicians often don\u2019t see the homelessness<\/a> going on in the places they represent, and therefore cannot be effective advocates.<\/p>\n The rates of rural homelessness seem to be going up, too. Since 2013, homelessness among grade-school students has increased 11 percent<\/a>, although the nationwide rate of homelessness for this age group has only gone up 3 percent.<\/p>\n Rural homelessness is either getting worse, or it\u2019s always been a big problem and only now are we realizing that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Even though the statistics indicate rural homelessness is on the rise, availability of resources for this population is not. Services for homeless people are funded in large part by the federal government. HUD, which distributes funding for programs like rapid rehousing, tends to focus mainly on urban areas. It basically separates locations into \u201curban\u201d and \u201cnot urban,\u201d with most of its attention going to the former.<\/p>\n Small towns often don\u2019t have homeless shelters or social service agencies. What resources there are could be harder to find. They\u2019re based out of churches or ran by local businesses. People learn about them through word-of-mouth. Seeking help in this way\u2014by asking neighbors and co-workers\u2014can be tricky. It\u2019s hard to keep private issues private in rural communities. Many people fear their situation becoming public and the gossip and judgment that could come with it.<\/p>\n In order to survive and stand a chance of escaping homelessness, people need a network of supports:<\/p>\n Case managers play a large role in making referrals and coordinating services. With small towns often spread apart by many miles, case management is nearly impossible.<\/p>\n Transportation is another major problem facing rural homeless people. Without public transportation to fall back on, if one doesn\u2019t have a car or has car problems, maintaining employment and accessing services is extremely difficult. It\u2019s common in rural settings to need to travel to several towns in the same day. Where urban homeless people can access buses or subways when worse comes to worst, rural homeless people become stranded.<\/p>\n Due to the lack of resources, many homeless people in rural areas live exposed to the elements. Forty percent of homeless people in rural areas live unsheltered. That\u2019s a higher percentage than homeless people in urban or suburban areas.<\/p>\n People who live unsheltered, such as in tents or cardboard camps, tend to have dramatically shorter lifespans. They more easily fall victim<\/a> to contagious diseases like Hepatitis A, as well as other health conditions resulting from poor hygiene. Hypothermia and heat stroke can quickly turn deadly. Many homeless people die from exposure to extreme heat or cold.<\/p>\n Housing in rural towns is typically older and in poorer condition. For example, non-urban housing is twice as likely<\/a> to have incomplete plumbing. Squatters often seek shelter in abandoned, run-down houses, which may have been unoccupied for years and contain structural and environmental hazards. These conditions are preferable to rough sleeping, but often come with just as many dangers.<\/p>\n Sadly, sometimes the only option available to rural homeless people is to move. This means leaving behind what\u2019s familiar and any existing safety net and risking it on the hope of better chances in the city. Trading hardship in one setting for hardship in another is not a good solution. It invalidates the attachment and sense of belonging a homeless person may have with his or her environment.<\/p>\n Rural homelessness is very different from urban or suburban homelessness. In order to help those who suffer from it, there need to be programs developed specifically for them. Greater focus on things rural communities lack\u2014transportation, safe housing, case management, etc.\u2014will give them the tools they need to escape homelessness.<\/p>\n A few programs are appearing across the country to address rural homelessness specifically. Colorado\u2019s Coalition for the Homeless<\/a> connects 14 rural service agencies, better enabling them to provide resources that are needed most. North Dakota\u2019s Housing Incentive Fund<\/a> allocated $35 million in 2013 for the development of affordable housing.<\/strong> These programs work because they take the unique needs of their communities into consideration.<\/p>\n A better system for counting homeless people in rural areas is also needed, perhaps most of all. Until there\u2019s a reliable method for determining how many homeless people there are in each area, it\u2019s impossible for the government to know how much funding to provide.<\/p>\n Talk to your legislators<\/strong><\/em><\/a> about providing a better system, along with more complete research on the unique needs rural homeless people have. This will help take this population out of the margins and give them the opportunity to be successful.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Photo<\/a>\u00a0courtesy of Matt Palmer on Unsplash<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s a myth about homelessness: that if an area has a problem with it, it\u2019s obvious. The public may not do much to help, but they can at least see homeless people are there, sleeping in tents under bridges or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":13640,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[681],"tags":[769,253,832,515,508,7484,644,12948,12950,12949],"coauthors":[9291],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13639"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13639\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19539,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13639\/revisions\/19539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13639"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-537697-2997182.cloudwaysapps.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=13639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Small Towns Have Fewer Resources<\/h3>\n
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Rural Homelessness Comes with Unique Dangers<\/h3>\n
Communities Need Individualized Solutions<\/h3>\n