Homelessness in Australia, Canada, and USA

The BBC article below on homelessness in Australia is very recent. I was curious to get some numbers about homelessness in Canada and the USA and compare them all.

I reviewed several articles with numbers on the homeless in the USA and they are not all consistent.

The article on the homeless in America is from the Wall Street Journal and my suspicion is that the numbers are light. Why would a newspaper that is pro-Bush put out numbers that would make the administration appear bad especially in light of Katrina and a less than booming economy.

Still it is informative to compare the countries. If the numbers are perhaps even an average on the homeless, then homelessness in Canada is staggering when placed in proportion to the numbers in the USA and the USA has nothing to brag about either.


Hard life for Australia's homeless

Charities estimate there are more than 100,000 homeless people in Australia with indigenous people the hardest hit.

This transient population includes families with small children and divorced women as well as those suffering addiction and mental illness.

Australia's population is 21,161,000.

Homelessness 'chronic' in Canada: study

Canada's homeless population is somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people, while another 1.7 million residents struggle with "housing affordability issues," says an analysis of the latest research on shelter.

Canada's population is 33,128,000.

Homeless in America

Usually male and enduring some impairment—mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, disease—those who've lived on the streets for more than a year ("the chronics") make up about 10% of the two million or so Americans regarded as homeless.

Population of the USA is 302,000,000.