In today’s age walking around a heavily populated city or town does not come without seeing a person or a group of people sitting on a stoop or standing outside of a convenient store asking passer by’s to spare any money that they can. It seems to have become something that society just plainly expects when they enter a populated area and most people may not even give a second thought to the unsettling fact that this has grown to be something society does not think of as an issue anymore but just as a sort of “way of living” for some unfortunate people.

These people do not take pleasure in the everyday privileges of having a place to sleep or food to eat. They live everyday wondering how they will get their next meal or how they will feed and shelter their family for the night. Many of them resort to standing on the street asking strangers for any money that they can spare in order for them to collect enough to keep going.

When seeing beggars on the street, a lot of people brush it of and think that it is just them being lazy and say to themselves that they should just get a job to support their families. While this may be the case for the vast minority of the homeless population, the vast majority of homeless people have pre-existing conditions that are causing them to be homeless.

The graph shows the approximate amount of recorded homeless people in the United States. As seen on the graph over 150,000 people have mental illnesses including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and over 50,000 are fleeing domestic violence. These people are not doing this because it is easy. They are doing this because they do not have any other choice.

The graph above shows the amount of homeless people in Allegheny County. With 1,400 people living in shelters there are still 91 left without a home and forced to live on the streets.