Rural homelessness is an overlooked and worsening problem

Although the homelessness rate is lower in rural areas than in urban ones, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness reports that poor rural communities suffer from some of the highest homeless and poverty rates in the U.S. "If President Obama wants to do something about income inequality, he could start by calling attention to an overlooked problem: rural homelessness," Timothy Collins writes for the Daily Yonder.

Source: Geography of Homelessness

Typically, rural homelessness is not as visible as urban homelessness. In cities, one can often see people sleeping in the streets, while in rural areas, one might only see a person hiking along a highway every once in a while. "Rural, like urban homelessness, can be a result of poverty, inadequate housing, domestic violence, mental illness and the invisible injuries of combat," according to the Interagency Council on Homelessness, Collins reports.

Rural people are between 1.2 and 2.3 times more likely to be poor than urban people, Collins notes. These numbers show the rural geographic discrimination that will go on because of the recession. Almost one in five rural counties has a poverty rate of 20 percent or higher. Some of those people live in crumbling structures in rural slums, and they should be considered homeless as well, he argues.

Collins writes that Obama should use his remaining time in office to combat poverty, and that if Congress won't support the funding of anti-poverty measures, the president can still "educate Americans about the human, social and economic costs of poverty that are dragging our nation down." (Read more)