ervices. Many of them suffer of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), meaning that they have nightmares, horrific flashbacks and are constantly reminded of the horrible things that happened during the war (Bauhmohl et al. 28). Many have tried to get help but most of them are so badly battered that can’t do anything because they’ve crossed the borderline. (They call it the thin red line. It is the boundary between insanity and logic). They are people who have given the best of themselves for the sake of their country, and in return they lose their homes, their families and most importantly their mind.But why are people homeless? The majority of them have graduated from high school, many have attended college, and a few have a bachelor’s degree or higher degrees. They are not illiterate yet they have always worked in what Michael Piore calls the “secondary labor market” of low paying sporadic manual jobs (Rosenthal 20). These jobs pay minimum wages that when a time comes and there is not enough money to pay the bills or the rent, they find themselves living on the street. In 1986 Richard b. Freeman and Brian hall conducted an extensive study of homeless people in the U.S.A. and found that 33% are mentally ill, 29%are alcoholics, and 14% are drug addicts. From these figures they concluded that these are the reasons of homelessness. But Jonathan Kozol reached a very different conclusion. In his book Rachel and Her Children, his study of the homeless, he interviews dozens of people who lost their jobs, lost their homes to fire, or were forced into homelessness by economic disaster. Between 1980 and 1988 closings, company merges, and other factors caused two million industrial jobs to disappear each year. He believes that this has a lot to do with the increase of homelessness (What are the causes of homelessness 54).Homelessness and poverty are inextricably linked. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for fo...
