healthcare in the spirit of generous excellenceImportant Links:
- United Way of the Midlands-Basic & Material Needs read
- A Growing Need-Children Living in Homeless Shelters read
- Local Homeless Challenges and Facts read
- Homelessness in America Today read
- National Estimates of Homelessness read
- People Need Health Care read
- An Effective Response to the Problem read
A Growing Need - Children Living in Homeless Shelters
Women and children have emerged as the fastest growing number of homeless locally as well as nationally. Omaha has responded by opening four shelters specifically to care for homeless children. These children, birth to 18 years old, are in the shelter for several reasons:
- Abuse and neglect
- Runaways
- Status offenders
- Abandoned by their parents
Most children come with no health history, primary care provider, or with chronic conditions requiring medication and monitoring. Public health nurses provide assessment of acute and chronic conditions with referrals to appropriate health care; medication management; development of individual health plans and emergency action plans; and in-service staff about issues that impact children's health.
Ongoing funding is needed to continue services to this vulnerable population - the homeless men, women and children living in local shelters.
Many factors put people at risk of homelessness. Systemic issues of unemployment, low wages, expensive housing, lack of health insurance and racial discrimination combine with common personal issues such as domestic violence, abuse of alcohol and other drugs, and serious mental and physical illnesses to create this persistent social problem.
- In the late 1990s between 2.3 to 3.5 million people were homeless at some point during an average year. 13.5 million of us have experienced "literal homelessness" at least once in our lifetimes.
- 1.2 million American families on waiting lists for subsidized housing are at particular risk of homelessness today. Any crisis could cause them to lose their precarious housing and wind up on the streets.
- Like 40 million other Americans, homeless people typically do not have health insurance. The federal Medicaid program has provided coverage for many homeless women and children and some disabled men, but Medicaid policy changes are causing loss of health coverage for many people without homes.
- Homeless people are particular victims of certain diseases. Approximately one-third have mental illnesses. Perhaps one-half have a current or past drug or alcohol addiction. Communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, ravage the homeless population. Infections of every sort are prominent among homeless people. Trauma resulting from violence and conditions caused by exposure to the elements are common among homeless people.
- Homeless people also have all the same health problems as people with homes, but at elevated rates. Without a home, there is no place to recuperate from an illness or to treat an injury, and health problems tend to get far worse before they get better.
- A large segment of the homeless population is families with children, in a survey of 25 cities, accounting for 36% of the homeless population.
- Each year, more than 1.35 million children and youth experience life without a home - living in shelters, vehicles, and parks.
- One out of seven of those treated by homeless health care projects is a child under age 15.
- Two out of five Health Care for the Homeless patients are females.
- 31% of homeless persons are over the age of 45.
- Forty percent of homeless men are veterans, although veterans comprise only 34% of the adult male population.
- More than 60 percent of Health Care for the Homeless clients are from racial or ethnic minority populations.