Maine is a state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeastern most state in the Lower 48. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and northwest, and shares a maritime border with Nova Scotia. Maine is the largest state in New England by total area, nearly larger than the combined area of the remaining five states. Of the 50 U.S. states, it is the 12th-smallest by area, the 9th-least populous, the 13th-least densely populated, and the most rural. Maine's capital is Augusta, and its most populous city is Portland, with a total population of 68,408, as of the 2020 census.
Oxford County is a county in the state of Maine, United States. As of the 2020 Census, the county had a population of 57,777. Its county seat is the town of Paris. The county was formed on March 4, 1805, by the Massachusetts General Court in the Maine District from northerly portions of York and Cumberland counties. It borders the Canadian province of Quebec. Part of Oxford County is included in the Lewiston-Auburn, Maine metropolitan New England City and Town Area while a different part of Oxford County is included in the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford, Maine metropolitan New England City and Town Area.
Hancock County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maine. As of the 2020 census, the population was 55,478. Its county seat is Ellsworth. The county was incorporated on June 25, 1789, and named for John Hancock, the first governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Cumberland County is a county in the U.S. state of Maine. As of the 2020 census, the population was 303,069, making it the most populous county in Maine. Its county seat is Portland. Cumberland County was founded in 1760 from a portion of York County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, and named for William, Duke of Cumberland, a son of King George II. Cumberland County has the deepest and second-largest body of water in the state, Sebago Lake, which supplies tap water to most of the county. The county is the state's economic and industrial center, having the resources of the Port of Portland, the Maine Mall, and having corporate headquarters of major companies such as onsemi, IDEXX Laboratories, Unum, and TD Bank. Cumberland County is part of the Portland–South Portland, ME Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Androscoggin County is a county in the U.S. state of Maine. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 111,139. Its county seat is Auburn and its most populous city is Lewiston.
North Windham is a census-designated place (CDP) within the town of Windham in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 4,904 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Area.
A skid row, also called skid road, is an impoverished area, typically urban, in English-speaking North America whose inhabitants are mostly poor people "on the skids". This specifically refers to people who are poor or homeless, considered disreputable, downtrodden or forgotten by society. A skid row may be anything from an impoverished urban district to a red-light district to a gathering area for people experiencing homelessness or drug addiction. In general, skid row areas are inhabited or frequented by impoverished individuals and also people who are addicted to drugs. Urban areas considered skid rows are marked by high vagrancy, dilapidated buildings, and drug dens, as well as other features of urban blight. Used figuratively, the phrase may indicate the state of a poor person's life.
In the United States, the number of homeless people on a given night in January 2023 was more than 650,000 according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Homelessness has increased in recent years, in large part due to an increasingly severe housing shortage and rising home prices in the United States.
The population of the city of Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington, was 737,015 in the 2020 United States census. Only about a fifth of the households include minor children, and more people live alone here than any other U.S. city besides San Francisco. Seattle's population is mostly white, with a relatively large minority of Asians. It has the largest African American population in the area and a Latino population that is growing quickly. About half the population are Christians and about a third are unaffiliated.
Massachusetts has an estimated population of 6.981 million as of 2022 according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This represents a −0.7% decrease in population from the 2020 census, when the population was 7.029 million. Currently, Massachusetts is the sixteenth most populous U.S. state.
Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, living in boarding houses with no security of tenure, and people who leave their homes because of civil conflict and are refugees within their country.
Scarborough is a town in Cumberland County on the southern coast of the U.S. state of Maine. Located about 7 miles (11 km) south of Portland, Scarborough is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine metropolitan statistical area. The population was 22,135 at the 2020 census, making it the most populous town in Maine.
In the Seattle King County area, there were estimated to be 11,751 homeless people living on the streets or in shelters. On January 24, 2020, the count of unsheltered homeless individuals was 5,578. The number of individuals without homes in emergency shelters was 4,085 and the number of homeless individuals in transitional housing was 2,088, for a total count of 11,751 unsheltered people.
Bridgton is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Bridgton in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,071 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland–South Portland–Biddeford, Maine Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The San Francisco Bay Area comprises nine northern California counties and contains five of the ten most expensive counties in the United States. Strong economic growth has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, but coupled with severe restrictions on building new housing units, it has resulted in a statewide housing shortage which has driven rents to extremely high levels. The Sacramento Bee notes that large cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles both attribute their recent increases in homeless people to the housing shortage, with the result that homelessness in California overall has increased by 15% from 2015 to 2017. In September 2019, the Council of Economic Advisers released a report in which they stated that deregulation of the housing markets would reduce homelessness in some of the most constrained markets by estimates of 54% in San Francisco, 40 percent in Los Angeles, and 38 percent in San Diego, because rents would fall by 55 percent, 41 percent, and 39 percent respectively. In San Francisco, a minimum wage worker would have to work approximately 4.7 full-time jobs to be able to spend less than 30% of their income on renting a two-bedroom apartment.
The 2020 United States Census reported that San Francisco had a population of 873,965—an increase from the 2010 Census count of 805,235. The 2022 Census Bureau American Community Survey put the population at 808,437: a decrease of 65,528 from 2020. With a population density of 18,633 per square mile (7,194/km2), San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city, behind only New York.
Homelessness in the United States has differing rates of prevalence by state. The total number of homeless people in the United States fluctuates and constantly changes, hence a comprehensive figure encompassing the entire nation is not issued, since counts from independent shelter providers and statistics managed by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development vary greatly. Federal HUD counts hover annually at around 500,000 people. Point-in-time counts are also vague measures of homeless populations and are not a precise and definitive indicator for the total number of cases, which may differ in both directions up or down. The most recent figure for 2019, was 567,715 individuals nationally that experienced homelessness at a point in time during this period.
The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated that more than 181,399 people were experiencing homelessness in California in January 2023. This is one of the highest per capita rates in the nation, with 0.46% of residents estimated as being homeless. More than two-thirds of homeless people in California are unsheltered, which is the highest percentage of any state in the United States. 49% of the unsheltered homeless people in the United States live in California. Even those who are sheltered are so insecurely, with 90% of homeless adults in California reporting that they spent at least one night unsheltered in the past six months.
In 2016, a report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) revealed that the U.S. state of Oregon had an estimated homeless population of 13,238 with about 60.5% of these people still unsheltered. In 2017, these numbers were even higher. As of January 2017, Oregon has an estimated 13,953 individuals experiencing homelessness. Of this homeless population, 1,083 are family households, 1,251 are veterans, 1,462 are unaccompanied young adults, and 3,387 are individuals experiencing chronic homelessness. As of 2022, 17,959 people total experienced homelessness in Oregon, with 2,157 individuals being youth under 18, 6,671 being female, 10,931 being male, and 131 being transgender. Also among the 17,959 total homeless in 2022, 15,876 were Non-Hispanic/Non-Latino, 2,083 were Hispanic/Latino, 13,960 were white, 1,172 were Black, African American, or African, 101 were Asian or Asian American, 880 were Native American, and those of multiple race were 1,619. Oregon has seen an increase in its total homeless population consistently every year since 2010. In last three years specifically Oregon has seen a 98.5% increase 2021-2022, 22.5% increase 2020-2021, and a 13.1% increase 2019-2020.
Homelessness is a serious issue throughout the state of New Mexico. Through a demographic examination it becomes evident that New Mexico has a high proportion of ethnographies that are currently and historically socioeconomically disadvantaged. Native Americans as a proportion of the US population represent the second highest amongst all States with only Alaska having a higher ratio, while it also has a large Hispanic population. Homelessness is a direct cause from an individual not being able to provide themselves with the most basic of necessities to maintain a healthy life hence having a higher proportion of individuals in poverty places a greater risk of an individual becoming homeless.
