Homeless in US: A deepening crisis on the streets of America
By Hugo Bachega BBC News, Portland, Oregon
- 8 October 2018
They seem to be almost everywhere, in places old and new, no age spared. Sleeping on cardboard or bare ground, the homeless come together under bridges and trees, their belongings in plastic bags symbolising lives on the move.
Many have arrived on the streets just recently, victims of the same prosperity that has transformed cities across the US West Coast. As officials struggle to respond to this growing crisis, some say things are likely to get worse.
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Australian academic Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, travelled across the US for two weeks last December in a mission that included visits to Los Angeles and San Francisco. It resulted in a scathing report in which he said the American dream was, for many, rapidly becoming the American illusion - the Trump administration strongly criticised his findings.
The future, he warned in an interview, did not look promising. "The federal government's policies under this administration have been to cut back, as much as possible, on various housing benefits and I think the worst is probably yet to come."
Other rich countries have faced rising homelessness, too, as the most vulnerable feel the burden of austerity policies, rising costs and unemployment. But in most parts of Europe, for example, there was still a "robust welfare safety net", Mr Alston said, to help those at risk. "In essence, if you're in Europe, you get access to necessary health care, psychological, physical rehabilitation... That contrasts dramatically with the US."
