In the US, homeless individuals foremost suffer from financial hardship not mental illness. Consider 39% of homeless individuals are in families [0: Page 17] while 40% have a serious mental illness or drug problem.[1] Many develop these problems while homeless.

Homelessness in the US has also increased by 47% since 2018. [0: Page 2] I doubt homelessness or drug abuse has increased accordingly.

People make the mistake to think otherwise because its not the homelessness you often see.

[0]: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2024-...

[1]: https://www.kff.org/medicaid/five-key-facts-about-people-exp...

Take a look at Figure 7 on this page, which indicates that (annual) overdose deaths have more than doubled since 2018: https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/overd...

If have lived anywhere with a significant drug-addict (opioid or fentanyl) population through this time period, you’ve seen the increase; if you haven’t, you may be lucky for it.

> People make the mistake to think otherwise because its not the homelessness you often see.

Indeed. Those homeless people without mental illness likely have more interest in not being seen, and more ability to avoid it.

> Homelessness in the US has also increased by 47% since 2018. [0: Page 2] I doubt homelessness or drug abuse has increased accordingly.

Not sure what the typo is in here. Surely homelessness has indeed increased in accordance with homelessness.

> People make the mistake to think otherwise because its not the homelessness you often see.

I don't think this is a mistake so much as people do not care about the homelessness they don't see.

Ironically when you use the specific words for the homelessness they do care about (unsheltered or unhoused) you're accused of being woke or whatever.

Do you want to fix the typo?