Homeless differ widely in urban, rural areas
By TANYA EISERER / Abilene Reporter-News
The face of homelessness is different in Abilene and the Big Country than urban areas, both in terms of race and living situations.
Nationwide, homeless individuals are more likely to be African-American males, particularly in urban areas, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.
In a semi-rural city like Abilene, homeless individuals are more likely to be white, single males, said Belinda Cook, executive director of Hope Haven.
The homeless also tend to be less visible in rural and semi-rural areas because they are more likely to live in abandoned houses without electricity or water, in automobiles or in make-shift lean-tos, said Sue Wright, a professor of sociology at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
Many people get their impression of homelessness from the media, according to Wright. The media image of the homeless is limited to people on the streets or in shelters, she wrote in a paper printed in the 1997 edition of the Encyclopedia of Rural Sociology. Wright co-wrote the paper with her husband, Dean Wright, also a sociology professor at Drake.
Such a narrow view of the problem is inadequate for studying homelessness in rural areas, they wrote. "Rural areas have comparatively few people on the streets and usually do not have shelters."
Homeless people in rural and semi-rural areas are less likely to live on the streets or in shelters and are more likely to live with relatives in overcrowded or substandard housing, explained Salvation Army Captain Edward Alonzo.
Cook said homeless individuals in rural and semi-rural areas also tend to have a better work ethic. The Wrights' studies tend to confirm their opinion, finding relatively high levels of employment, but lack of sufficient income among rural homeless individuals.
"A lot of the poor in urban areas have lived on welfare for generations," she said. "In rural areas, a lot of people rely on their families for help."
Not much is known about the homeless in rural areas because most of the academic research and funding has focused on metropolitan areas like New York, Cook said.
Rural areas have just as many problems with poverty, Cook said.
"It's just so spread out and well hidden that you don't see it," she said.
The federal government's definition of homelessness, which determines much of the funding and grants, also doesn't address the differences between urban and rural or semi-rural areas, Sue Wright said.
"Under the official federal definition they are not considered homeless if they have a roof over their heads," she said. According to the federal Stewart B. McKinney Act, a person is considered homeless who "lacks a fixed, regular and adequate night-time residence," the National Coalition for the Homeless stated.
More services
Metropolitan communities also generally have more services available for destitute individuals, Cook said.
"In semi-rural and rural areas, people don't have the information on where to go or what to do," she said. "A lot of times it goes unnoticed, and people suffer in silence."
Many of Hope Haven's residents are from the rural counties around here where there are fewer services available, Cook added.
Abilene may have a bigger problem than it would like to admit, but the community does tend to support its local shelters, churches and nonprofit organizations serving that population, Hope Haven's Cook said.