Homeless at Home - Why Are So Many People in America Homeless?

I have a question that has been plaguing my mind lately. I'm sure that I'm not alone in my queries about this highly volatile topic and I don't know if there is really an acceptable answer that I could live with. The question is:

Why are there so many homeless people in America?

After all, we are supposed to be a wealthy nation. We are supposed to be a super power. Yet our homeless population continues to escalate and no one seems to care. Sure there are a few programs that are designed to help the homeless but so many American citizens live in their cars, hotels, homeless shelters and the streets.

With our country spending 12 billion dollars a month in Iraq, I'm sure that that money would be far better served in aiding American's. If our government would even just spend half of that, the homeless problem would be nowhere near what it has become.

Yeah, yeah, I know. If we don't fight our battles "over there" we would have to fight them over here. It's seems to be the battle cry of our soon to be ex President. It's just a smoke screen for our illegal occupation of a third world country. But Mr. President, we have a far greater problem in this country that I never heard you speak of. Why is that Mr. President?

There are more homeless people on American streets today than any other time in history. It is impossible to get a very accurate account of the exact number but experts suggest that there are more than three million homeless people in America today. I would say that was a conservative estimate. People that have fallen under hard times are now homeless and some have children. In fact, there is an estimated one million homeless children.

It is not just the skid row wino any longer. These people could be your neighbor, your family, your friends.

Or maybe even you.

It has been said that people today are one or two paychecks away from being homeless. In such a supposed great nation I find that unacceptable. Why doesn't everyone feel that way? Have we become such a calloused nation that we ignore the less fortunate among us?