I just thought this would be an interesting read for everyone. Because as the author points out we know very little about the homeless because of the difficulty in gathering info. Hopefully it fills some gaps in people's understanding of the issue. What a landmark new study on homelessness tells us While unsheltered homelessness in the US has grown conspicuously worse over the last decade, understanding the experiences of those living without housing remains logistically difficult. So much of what researchers know about the daily lives of the non-homeless population is through household research, like the Census Household Pulse or the American Community Survey. A lack of clear data on those without housing makes it harder to understand how they lost their shelter, how they survive — or don’t survive — and easier for half-baked theories and myths to spread about homeless individuals themselves. That’s what makes an ambitious new study out of California — where 30 percent of the nation’s homeless population lives — so significant. Led by the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative (BHHI) at the University of California San Francisco, researchers sought to reflect the experiences of all people ages 18 and older experiencing homelessness in the state. Their final report, the California Statewide Study of People Experiencing Homelessness, or CASPEH, includes nearly 3,200 administered questionnaires and 365 in-depth interviews collected between October 2021 and November 2022, including from urban, rural, and suburban areas. https://www.vox.com/2023/7/5/23778810/homelessness-california-unsheltered-research
