According to the authors in 1970 more than half of the country’s poor lived in metropolitan areas, …show more content…
Over the course of the subsequent decade, greater Seattle’s suburban poop population grew by three-quarters (7 percent), compared with a rise of 26 percent in cities” (Kneebone and Berube 2013, 22).
Our perception of the poor tend to be uneducated minorities, but the new face of poverty is that of white and homeowners in the suburbs where “more than 36 percent of suburban families below the poverty line were homeowners in 2010, compared with 20 percent in the cities” (Kneebone and Berube 2013, …show more content…
2007, 2). The demographics show that the “heads of homeless families are overwhelmingly female, while homeless individuals are predominantly male” and when “compared with their single counterparts, adults in homeless families are much less likely to have mental health and substance abuse problems, more likely to have completed high school, more likely to have recently worked, and more likely to have regular contact with members of their social network” (Culhane, et al. 2007, 2-3). Homeless families aren’t as visible as homeless individuals because you are more likely to find homeless families living in shelters rather than on the streets. The authors find that there is no indication “that adults who are homeless with their children are as beset by personal and social barriers as unaccompanied single adults, nor does the level of such personal and social barriers distinguish homeless families from other poor-but-housed families. Homeless families are, however, poorer than other poor families and less likely to have recently lived in subsidized housing” (Culhane, et al. 2007, 3). While the authors show no correlation between the article on poverty and the one on homeless families, one can concede that they face similar issues, while one group faces poverty within the confines of a home the other must face the additional challenges of where will my kids sleep tonight.