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As a European, it always baffles me how normal it is in US to be homeless. Seems like it can happen to anyone during their life. A bit of bad luck and you're on
by koonsolo 8y ago
As a European, it always baffles me how normal it is in US to be homeless. Seems like it can happen to anyone during their life. A bit of bad luck and you're on the street.
In Europe, there are so many safety nets that nobody should end up homeless. Some still do, but it's really a tiny minority compared to US.
This is also one of the most surprising things I saw, the first time I went to the US: so many homeless people, everywhere. Even in small towns.
- stevenwoo 8y agoI do not know for certain, but it may be that homeless are easier to see in the USA (I have seen people living in tents/on sidewalk in sleeping bags on/under the onramp to the freeway in San Francisco/San Jose/San Diego which is still shocking), but the stats don't make the USA much worse than the UK/France/Germany/Netherlands from a quick sampling of western European nations. Of course how it's defined and how the stats were gathered are all important, but I've seen UK homelessness/rough sleeping discussed on the front page of the UK edition of The Guardian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homeless_...
- xtracto 8y agoEven reading the comments in here sheds very interesting light: People discussing about why is the person homeless: Is it because of mental issues? is it because of laziness? is it because of bad luck? It doesn't matter! it should not matter. People should not be homeless, and the different safety nets should be agnostic of the reasons (otherwise you are catering only for the mental health issues, and you still have homeless drug addicts, or homeless bad-luck people).