The faces of homelessness in the United States of America are changing again. Again? Yes, again. The first people to settle in what is now the USA were homeless when they arrived. Those first Spanish settlers in Florida were homeless when they arrived. The same goes for other early settlers from Europe and the British Isles. They were homeless when they arrived, but not for long. They built dwellings and organized communities, some of which did not last beyond a few years in this new land.

Early homelessness was driven by:
-Economic opportunity,
-Political or religious oppression,
-Curiosity and adventure.

Times changed and became more suited to economic and social stability, even if of a limited nature. More than 200 years passed. Then came the American Revolution, followed by the War Between the States. Soldiers from both conflicts returned home, some to places where they felt they no longer belonged, some to places destroyed in conflict. They became at least a portion of the homeless of those times.

Westward expansion provided glimpses of vast areas just waiting to welcome settlers. It provided an answer for at least some those left homeless by wars, and so off they went, following Horace Greeley's advice to "Go West, young man!" Growing agricultural labor demands in the Midwest and West were filled, to a certain extent, by migrating ex-slaves who no longer had "homes" with their former masters, and by the often-reluctant occupants of the "orphan trains" carrying poor and homeless children to what was hoped would be better lives.

Large numbers of patients from psychiatric hospitals were released into the mainstream population from the late 1950s through the 1980s. Soldiers returned from Viet Nam who couldn't readjust to society were cast adrift after their tours of duty during the late 1960s through the mid 1970s. The 1980s through the present has seen and continues to see the loss of American jobs to cheaper in labor foreign markets. Housing costs are unthinkable in many areas.

Homelessness is always a problem. Today, suburban and rural areas contend along with their big city sisters in the efforts to alleviate homelessness. Two of the hardest-hit categories are children and the elderly, but people of every age are affected. Every citizen, politician, immigrant, whether educated or uneducated, is touched by homelessness.

Social service and welfare programs sometimes have ludicrous requirements. Are you aware that some programs require

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