Quite honestly, I don’t remember the name of the play, but the subject was homelessness and hunger. It began with a blackened stage, a large screen, and gentle music. The screen printed out statistics on homelessness and hunger in my community, giving numbers for kids, adults, veterans and ‘otherly’ abled people. To put it bluntly, it was tragic.
The fact that we live in the richest country in the history of mankind and that 1 out of 7 children go hungry, and that in my tiny community there are over 150 veterans who are homeless, is unacceptable. The most affected group are women 45-54, followed by women 55-64, then male children 6-11. Once again, unacceptable.
The numbers do not tell the entire story, but certainly give an indication of a problem that at times seems to have no answers. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development:
- On a random night in 2017 (the latest stats we have) we have about 554 thousand Americans homeless. To put that in perspective, that is more people than in the cities of Tucson, Arizona, Sacramento, California or Minneapolis, Minnesota.
- The homeless population grew by 1% between 2016 and 2017.
- In 2017 there were 184 thousand families with children who were homeless at some point during the year.
- In the state of North Carolina there are over 900 veterans that are homeless.