This week in class we looked at the beginning of homelessness and the causes of it. I found it fascinating that there was never a problem with street homeless until the steep recession in the 1980s. Learning that street homelessness only became a problem in the 1980s showed me how new this issue is. I am not sure why I thought this was an issue that has been going on for a lot longer, but I learned that it has not. One of the things I found fascinating in regards to counting homeless was their reasoning for doing it in January. I had wondered why they did the count in January, but after learning the reasoning it made more sense. They do the homeless count in January because they hope it is easier to count people since it is cold outside, so they hope they are mostly in shelters. Something that was even more of a shock to me was the amount of money it cost to keep someone on the streets for a year. I knew it cost a lot of money for a homeless person to be on the streets, but I did not realize that it was $45,000. It baffles me that this money is not being put to a more efficient use, as I am sure it baffles many people. $45K is a lot of money that could be used to build shelters, temporary homes, or simply provide a meal for a person to eat each day.