Homeless Study Released

Wednesday, February 28th 2007, 8:55 pm

By: News On 6

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released a groundbreaking study Wednesday outlining characteristics of the homeless population. According to the study, there are more than 750,000 people homeless in the United States on any given night.

It's broken down by age, gender, race and household types. Tulsa is on par with the national trends in gender, age and household types. Most of the homeless population here are single men. The majority are between the ages of 31 and 50.

There are as many as 700 people in Tulsa homeless shelters every night. But Tulsa advocates say there is a solution. â€œThe solution that we see to homelessness now in Tulsa is to create better housing, so that people can go right from the street to housing. And that housing needs to be adjusted for the kind of condition that they bring into their homeless condition,â€ says Jim Lyall with the Community Service Council.

The HUD study also found that 19 percent of the homeless population, nationally, is veterans.

To read more on this study, visit www.hud.gov.