I was homeless. Thank God I had an SUV to live in. However, being homeless is horrible. Believe it or not, it's expensive too. You can't go grocery shopping so your choices boil down to fast food or dumpster diving. Going to the bathroom is either hoping you can slide into a fast food place and do your thing or you end up dropping your drawers in an empty field (I've done both).
I am college educated, my husband is former military. I lost my job (they ran out of work), couldn't find another one, unemployment ran out, and so did our ability to pay rent. We were fortunate in that my husband is a veteran and we qualified for help to get housing again and vocational retraining for my husband.
Homelessness is a problem with no easy answers. I can tell you that having more available affordable housing or an expansion of section 8 vouchers would help a whole lot. As it is now, we live in a crummy neighborhood and our rent is cheap for what we have...BUT...we are still one car repair or one big medical bill away from being on the streets again. We do not qualify for any social program help other than using a public clinic for my healthcare, but I can't afford to have any tests run or some prescriptions filled because we just don't have the money. I am beyond thankful that my husband gets most of his medical care through the VA system. Even with that, we have to pay co-pays for his prescriptions and that runs about 150.00 per month. That's money we could use for things like groceries or gas for him to get to work.
Most of the US is one medical bill, one illness or one car repair away from being homeless. I'm of the opinion that in what is supposedly "the richest country in the world" people have to try to crowdfund to be able to pay medical bills. I can't stop thinking about the young man who died because he couldn't afford a 200.00 vial of insulin. There's something wrong with people's thinking when they start talking about medical care and housing being a privilege instead of a right.
I do appreciate the people who have posted Matthew 25 above. I think that says it all.