Welcome to Helping Hearts!
Join Us in Lending a Helping Heart to the Homeless Community!
Our organization not only aims to serve the homeless community, but to also educate our members and society about the challenges that homeless individuals face. From donations to hands-on activity, everyone is welcome to help provide daily essentials to the homeless population and build a stronger sense of community!
Why help the homeless?
The homeless population is the most vulnerable group to adverse health-related outcomes due to the situational living conditions that they experience every single day. Their preexisting lack of access to capital such as shelter, nutrition, and income can often result in a downward spiral because this insufficiency in capital can hinder them from accumulating and obtaining critical resources in the future that can enable them to escape homelessness.
How do people become homeless?
The leading causes of homelessness in the United States are the lack of affordable housing and insufficient income, according to data collected by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. Other factors that specifically contribute to homelessness include domestic violence, unemployment or job loss, structural failures such as the foreclosure crisis, mental illness or the lack of mental health services, and substance abuse or the lack of needed medical treatment.
Who are the homeless in the U.S.?
The following information, outlining the demographics of homeless individuals in the U.S., is excerpted from the 2018 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
- Most individuals experiencing homelessness were age 25 or older (90%). People between 18 and 24 years old made up just 9 percent of homeless individuals, and only one percent of homeless individuals were under 18 years old.
- Seven in ten people experiencing homelessness as individuals identified as men (262,025 men). The remaining 30 percent identified as women (just over 28% or 106,871 women), transgender, or gender non-conforming.
- Women accounted for slightly higher share of sheltered individuals (31%) than of unsheltered individuals (27%).
- Just under 19 percent of all individuals experiencing homelessness identified as Hispanic or Latino. The share of individuals identifying as Hispanic varied by sheltered status, accounting for 15 percent of the sheltered population and 23 percent of the unsheltered population.
- A majority of people experiencing homelessness as individuals identified as white (54% or 202,046 people), much higher than the percentage of people experiencing homelessness in families with children (38%). However, while an even higher percentage of unsheltered homeless individuals were white (59% or 104,274 people), it was the same as the percentage of unsheltered people in families who were white.
- African Americans accounted for 35 percent of all homeless individuals (or 128,741 people) and 27 percent of unsheltered individuals (or 47,770 people). By comparison, African Americans accounted for 51 percent of people experiencing homelessness in families with children, and 20 percent of unsheltered people in families.
Where are the homeless in the U.S.?
California has roughly 25% of the entire U.S. homeless population. In Orange County specifically, the federally mandated 2019 Point in Time Count approximated a homeless population of 6,860, which is a whopping 43% increase from the 4,792 homeless individuals estimated by the Point in Time Count from 2017. These numbers are likely to continually increase if the steady rise in housing prices and cost of living in Orange County does not become addressed, as the county still remains among the top 10 least affordable metropolitan areas in the nation.
What is the solution to homelessness?
The Housing First Model recognizes that homelessness is, first and foremost, a housing issue. Rapid re-housing and permanent supportive housing are examples of integral approaches in meeting the needs of the homeless and in enabling them to reintegrate back into society. Permanent supportive housing, in particular, is found to be 50% more affordable than leaving a chronically homeless person on the street. A key groundbreaking study conducted by researchers right here at UCI has even estimated that providing housing to all of Orange County’s chronically homeless population could save the county $42 million annually!