Orange County is second only to Los Angeles for the largest number of homeless people in the State of California. The difference is that homelessness in LA County is caused by drug addiction, mental illness or substance abuse related factors.
In Orange County, out of our 35,000 homeless, 80% of them were forced into this lifestyle because of the lack of affordable housing and rent controls.
Think about that. 80% of the people in Orange County who are currently homeless could be living in an apartment anywhere else in the Nation. It's only because of the cost of housing here that they remain homeless.
We make our own homeless.
This means we can also un-make them.
Here are a few more statistics courtesy of the County of Orange Community Indicators Report:
* There are 5,389 homeless children in Orange County under the age of six.
* There are less than 900 emergency shelter beds in all of Orange County.
* There are 30,000 homeless who need a place to sleep each night.
* 60% of the homeless in Orange County go regularly without meals.
* 81% of the homeless in Orange County feel severe hunger each night.
* Hundreds of families in Orange County face a dilemma. Living on an extremely limited income forces them to choose between food on the table and a table on which to eat food. They can eat or they can pay rent, but not both.
-kg
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6 comments:
Those statistics are not listed in the community indicators report.
Most of these statistics are in fact supported by the data in the annual OC Community Indicators report.
The 2009 report does not contain this specific information as subsequent reports have begun to exclude any specific reference to homelessness. However, the 2005, 2006 and 2007 reports do have this information and even the 2008 and 2009 reports contain enough information (under Housing, Rental & Home Sales, Employment and Children).
Hi Keith, can you please tell me exactly where you found those stats? I've looked in the 2007 OC Community Indicators report and I couldn't them. Thank you.
For more details see:
OC Community Indicators 2006 - Under "Family Wellbeing" section, with headline: "100,000 Children in Poverty as Families Struggle to Get By", page 48-49.
And also in the 2006 OCCI - page 10-11 under headline "Over 16,000 Homeless Children; Cost of Housing Main Factor"
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MORE STATS:
In Orange County, out of our 35,000 homeless, 80% of them were forced into this lifestyle because of the lack of affordable housing and rent controls.
PAGE 24 - 2007 OC COMMUNITY INDICATORS
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According to the definition of homelessness used by law, 11,642 OC children were ID'ed as homeless in 2005/2006. Applying the Housing and Urban Development definition (using the same data), 1,891 were homeless and 9.747 children were ID'ed as living doubled or tripled up (defined as 2 or more families living at the same address). - 2007 OC Comm. Indicators, pag 49, paragraph 4.
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For most families, homelessness resulted not from substance abuse or mental illness, but from financial loss, family problems, eviction, or from simply not having a job that pays enough to afford monthly rent or mortgage or the prohibitive upfront costs of renting and buying. The inability to save for a deposit was the main reason cited by families and individuals living in Anaheim motels for why there are homeless. - OC Comm Indicators 2007, page 49, paragraph 5.
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From graph on page 49 of 2007 OC C.I. Report: - Approximately 80% of children and youth identified as homeless live in double or tripled up conditions.
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Where exactly are you getting the figure of 35,000 homeless in Orange County?
My very first reply was:
"In Orange County, out of our 35,000 homeless, 80% of them were forced into this lifestyle because of the lack of affordable housing and rent controls."
FROM - PAGE 24 - 2007 OC COMMUNITY INDICATORS
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