On any given night nearly half a million people experience homelessness. Not only men, but countless children and women sleep in subway stations, parking lots, and sidewalks in unsafe areas in extreme weather conditions. The horrific sites of homeless individuals are common in most large cities, but average cities are seeing an increase of displaced individuals. Homelessness has become a norm in the United States because of high cost of living, domestic violence, and untreated mental illnesses, but with lowering cost of living, creating more women's shelters throughout the country and helping those with untreated mental illnesses get the help they deserve our homeless rate will decline.
The cost of living in the United States is amongst the
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“June 2017 Rent Report: 85% of U.S. Cities See Rents Rise in June.”). In Chile rent is 87% cheaper, groceries are 61.6% cheaper. In Greece rent is 91.6% cheaper, while groceries are 5.31% cheaper. The cost of living in both Chile and Greece is below the worldwide average, the same cannot be said for the United States. (“Cheapest Countries to Live | Money.”). With rent costing over$1,300, groceries, transportation, personal needs, and other necessary bills included, according to (BOA) the average American spends over $2,050 a month to live a stable lifestyle. Rent is the largest bill for the average American, so if rent was reduced more people would be spending less every month. Some might argue that individuals who are homeless were 'irresponsible' or too lazy to keep a job, but that is not the case for thousands of Americans. Vox reported that the leading cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing, adding that, "The share of income devoted to rent by the lowest-income households increased from an already whopping 55.7 percent to a staggering 62.5 percent." With the cost of rent decreasing the rate of displaced individuals becoming homeless will also decrease and less Americans will be victims of