Vulnerable People and Places Blog

    (Credit: GettyImages) Homelessness can take many forms, with people living on the streets, in encampments or shelters, in transitional housing programs, or doubled up with family and friends. The federal government reports that an estimated 1.5 million people a year experience homelessness. Others estimate that twice this number of people are actually living without housing in any given year. The connection between housing and homelessness is generally intuitive, but the strong link between health and homelessness is often overlooked. An injury or illness can lead to unforeseen challenges such as losing employment due to missing too much time from work or exhausting sick leave or not being able to maintain a regular schedule. This can be especially true for physically demanding jobs such as construction, manufacturing, and other labor-intensive industries. The loss of employment due to poor health can bring many issues. With the loss of income, one cannot afford to ...

On a given night in Portland, OR, roughly 1,800 people are without shelter. In San Francisco there are 5,100 . Across the country nearly 200,000 people survive on the streets, exposed to various elements and often ignored by passersby. How does this happen? Why does it seem like the nation's homeless population grows each year, particularly in cities that are economically booming? The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty has concluded that the #1 cause of these staggering numbers is a lack of affordable housing . Not drug addiction or lack of motivation to work, but simply a lack of options in lower income housing. Using Portland and San Francisco as examples, the average cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment is about $1100 and $2700 , respectively. If someone is living paycheck to paycheck and, for example, loses their job, it isn’t difficult to see how they might fall short on rent and not have enough savings to sustain themselves. Factors like physical disabi...

Source:  thetennistourist.com Ojai, California is a small town located about an hour and a half north from Los Angeles and an hour south of Santa Barbara. It's first inhabitants were the Chumash Indians, who gave it the name of Ojai, which means "Valley of the Moon". Through a grant called the Rancho Ojai Mexican land, Fernando Tico established a cattle ranch in 1837. In 1853, Tico sold the land to those in search of oil, who had little success. The area was settled in 1864 and was eventually laid out by a real estate developer named R.G. Surdam who eventually named it Nordhoff to honor the writer Charles Nordhoff. Due to the anti-German sentiment during World War I, places with German and German-sounding names were changed. Through this, Nordhoff was renamed Ojai once again in 1917. Source:  flickr.com Edward Libbey's interest was instantly peaked once he saw the valley, in which sparked his ideas for the expansion and beautification of the town. Libbey ai...

In the above video, a boy learns the hard way about water conservation. Although this video is obviously comedic in nature, it helps communicate a very important message: even small acts of wastefulness contribute to water scarcity. According to the Appamattox River Water Authority, for an average family of 4, as much as 600 gallons of water a month can be saved by simply turning off the faucet while brushing your teeth. ( http://arwava.org/water-conservation/ ) Now take the population of the Portland Metro area (2,389,228), divide by 4 (2,389,228/4=597307) multiply that by 12 months and 600 gallons (597307*12*600), and just a few simple math problems later you realize that we might be wasting as much as a staggering 4,300,610,400 gallons of water a year, simply by forgetting to turn off the tap! "Portlanders waste 4,300,610,400 gallons/year brushing our teeth" In many parts of our country, peoples lives and livelihoods are at stake due to lack of water. In Oj...

It's no secret that California has periods of drought, a large agricultural industry, and diminishing rainfall annually over the years. Not to mention a steadily growing population, it doesn't take an expert to see the possibility of available resources drying up, one resource in particular that is vital, water. It's a very difficult situation, the state's resources for clean drinking water are drying up and groundwater, which 85% of California residents depend on for drinking water, is being used in many areas of California unsustainably. Farmers in the Central Valley and the Central Coast of California depend heavily on groundwater and without sustainable usage, the groundwater resources could take several years to replenish. As the number one producer of food in the U.S. it goes without saying that the health of California's agricultural industry is very important. As for the residents of the golden state, many are wondering if their quality of life and access ...