Why are workers growing homeless

Homeless workers are growing, a paradox in the US.

At 10pm, a working technician in a hospital is entering a Walmart parking lot.

Her four children – one more breastfeed – are stacked on the back of her Toyota. He tells them that it is an adventure, but he is afraid that someone will call the police: « inadequate housing » is enough to lose your children.

It stays alert for hours. Her shift begins soon. It will get into the hospital exhausted, pretending that everything is well.

And of course it's not the only one. Throughout the country, men and women sleep at night by night and the next morning they start for their work. Others pick up enough for a week in a motel, knowing that a lost salary can leave them on the road.

These people are not on the sidelines of society. They are the workers on which America depends.

OR New York Times newspaper, It is trying to analyze a great paradox: this category of employees who are homeless is the victims of not a failed economy, but of an prosperous economy. Why?

The 'employees homeless' in the US

The phrase « workers homeless » should be a contradiction, a weakness in a nation that claims that hard work leads to stability.

This category is not included in official counts, ignored by policymakers, treated as an abnormality instead of a disaster that unfolds in public view.

Today, the threat of housing is more intense not in the poorest areas of the country, but in the richer and faster growth. In places like these, a low -paid work is followed by the lack of roof.

For a growing percentage of the country's labor force, a mix of rapidly growing rents, low wages and inadequate protection of their tenants has forced a brutal cycle of insecurity, where housing is unstable or completely inaccessible.

A recent study that analyzed the 2010 census found that almost half of people experiencing the lack of roof while residing in shelters and about 40% of those living outdoors or other rough conditions. But this is just a part of the picture.

These numbers do not capture the full scale of homeless people in America, that is, many who have no home but never enter the shelter or ending the streets.

America is experiencing what economists describe as a historically tight labor market, with a national unemployment rate of just 4%. And all this time, the homeless have been launched at the highest level ever recorded.

What does low unemployment benefit when workers are a salary away from the lack of roof?

52 million workers make less than $ 15 per hour

Some statistics briefly reflect because this disaster is evolving: today there is not a single state, a city or a county in the United States where a full -time employee can afford a two -bedroom apartment at average.

The amazing number of 12.1 million low -income households are « seriously burdensome », spending at least half of their income on rent and utility services. Since 1985, rental prices have exceeded 325%increase in income.

According to the national low -income housing coalition, the average « home wage » required to afford a mediocre rental of two bedrooms across the country is $ 32.11, while nearly 52 million US workers earn less than $ 15 per hour.

But it's not just that wages are very low- it's that work has become more precarious than ever. Even for those who earn over the minimum wage, the security of the work has been eroded in a way that makes steady housing increasingly inaccessible.

More and more workers are now facing unstable hours, unreliable working hours and lack of benefits, such as sick leave.

The rise in the timing « Just in Time » means that employees do not know how many hours they will have from week to week, which makes it impossible to rent for rent.

For millions of Americans, the biggest threat is not that they will lose their job. It is that the job will never pay enough, it will never provide several hours, it will never provide enough stability to keep them on a roof.

This is not just about New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

They are also in technological centers such as Ostein and Seattle, in cultural and economic centers such as Atlanta and Washington and in rapidly growing cities such as Nashville, Phoenix and Denver, places flooded with investment, luxury growth and corporate growth.

But this wealth does not diffuse down. They are concentrated at the top, while the financially affordable units are demolished, the new ones are blocked, the tenants are evicted – about every minute, seven evictions are deposited in all the United States, according to the Princeton Excellence Lab – and the housing is treated as a commodity that must be saved.

Victims of an economy that is prosperous

This results in a devastating motif: as cities are refined and « rejuvenated », nurses, teachers, caretakers and caregivers who keep them in operation are systematically deducted from prices.

Unlike previous periods of extensive misery, such as the recession of 2008, what we are watching today is a crisis that was less born of poverty than prosperity. These workers do not « fall » on the lack of roof. They push them. They are the victims not of a failed economy, but an economy that prospered – just not for them.

And yet, even as this calamity deepens, many families remain invisible, existing in a kind of shadowy kingdom: they lack residence, but are not counted or recognized by the federal government as « homeless ».

The gap between what we see and what is really happening is huge.

Recent research shows that the actual number of people experiencing the lack of roof – taking into account those living in cars or motels, or stay with others – is at least sixfold of official measurements. As bad as the mentioned numbers are, the reality is much worse.

Is there a solution?

It is not enough for these people to get out of the lack of roof, the New York Times note – some have to stop pushing them to it from the beginning.

In some cities, for each person who provides housing, four others are estimated to remain homeless. How can this relentless turmoil stop?

There are immediate steps: stronger protection of tenants, such as rental control and laws to evict for a fair cause, elimination of exclusion zones and higher salaries with strong labor protection. But they also need transformative, integrated solutions, such as large -scale social housing investments, which treat the affordable and reliable home as a basic public good and not as a privilege for a few.

Any essential solution will require a fundamental change in the way they are thinking of housing in America today. A safe, affordable home should not be a luxury. Should be a guaranteed right for everyone. The adoption of this idea will require the expansion of our moral imagination. Its withdrawal will require steadfast political determination.

They should ask those responsible not only how much worse this can be done, but also why people tolerate it for so long.

Because when work no longer provides stability, when salaries are very low and rents very high, when millions of people are a medical account, a lost salary, an increase in rent away from losing their homes – who exactly is safe?

Who feels safe in this country?