terans.In addition to the homeless population, even larger numbers are considered“marginally housed”; they are in danger of becoming homeless because of poverty orunavailable housing. About half the nation's poor households spend 70 percent ormore of their monthly income on housing, which puts them at risk of becominghomeless if faced with an economic problem. Because the number of people living inpoverty numbers some 37 million, the marginally housed would amount to nearly 20million people, creating the potential for a vast increase in the size of the homelesspopulation. Those who are housed only because they have been able to stay withfamily or friends are known as the hidden homeless.Many reasons have tried to explain the dramatic increase in the number ofhomeless people in the 1980s and 1990s. The total poverty rate tended to increasethroughout this period, and this was especially true in the inner city areas wheremost homeless people live. At the same time, the supply of low-income housingdeclined in some cities. Waiting lists for public housing are often many years longand increases in welfare payments have not kept pace with inflation. Among otherfactors implicated in the trend are changes in the treatment of the chronicallymentally ill, drug use, the inability of some families to support dependent adultmembers, and an increasing rate of violence against women....
