Although people living on the street may not be a common sight in Ames, many residents struggle with the basic need for shelter.

The Emergency Residence Project, 225 S. Kellogg Ave., is both a homeless shelter and a service for assisting families in keeping their homes. Vic Moss, the project’s director, said while the unemployment rate in Ames is very low – approximately 3 percent – close to half the city’s population is considered unable to afford housing.

This surprising figure comes from a 2000 survey, which said 48 percent of Ames families use more than 30 percent of their income for housing, which is generally considered to mean they cannot afford it.

Of course, this number does not represent the percentage of Ames’ population living in shelters or on the street, but it shows that a large number of residents must make significant sacrifices in other areas of their lives, such as food, health care or transportation.

Living under such financial strain also causes a great deal of stress, Moss said, which can be a factor in such other problems as domestic violence.

These families can be faced with the threat of eviction if their situation reaches the point where other obligations make it impossible to pay the rent. Moss said the number of people in this situation in Ames has increased over the years.

At this point, families can seek financial assistance from the Emergency Residence Project in order to stay in their homes.

Moss said the project generally tries to encourage families to seek help from public funds first, but they are often unable to do so.

“[The homelessness prevention program] started out real slow, but just in the last five or six years, it has quadrupled,” Moss said.

As inflation continues to distort the economy, Moss said the number of families in dire circumstances is greatly increasing. At the same time, however, the number of people in high-income situations is also going up.

This shrinking of the middle class, Moss said, is a significant problem for the country, and Ames is no exception.

One indicator of this growing financial divide, he said, is that developers have recently bought a trailer park near Iowa State’s campus in order to build high-end housing.

Moss said this is not effective in combating homelessness, as many families will be forced to relocate because affordable housing is unavailable to them. Instead, he said, Ames should encourage the existence of trailer parks because they often help keep families out of shelters and off the streets.

Although stereotypes often label all homeless people as lazy or addicted to alcohol or drugs, Moss said the majority of the cases he has worked with are simply the results of economic difficulties.

People working full time, he said, are no longer assured of being able to afford to pay rent – especially if they have families.

This is due to inflation, which has caused legislators to work toward increasing the minimum wage, but Moss said that is not enough to combat the problem in the long-term.

Inflation is only going to continue to increase, he said, and if the minimum wage is raised now, only to be left at the same rate for another 10 years or so, the situation will be worse in three to four years.

“It becomes meaningless quite quickly,” he said.

Rather than merely increasing the minimum wage, Moss said, a better solution would be to adjust it to the cost of living.

These broad concerns need to be addressed by people in the government in order to really decrease the amount of people who cannot afford shelter, Moss said.

He described an ideal approach to homelessness as “two-pronged,” which would include making sure shelters have adequate supplies and addressing the broader social systems that need to improve.

Students concerned about homelessness, Moss said, can do practical, hands-on things such as volunteering for Habitat for Humanity and taking political moves, such as pressuring representatives to ensure communities offer affordable housing.

Chris Cook, associate professor of human development and family studies, taught a class addressing the needs of families with special needs, including homelessness.

One of the things she required students to do in her class was to help prepare and serve dinner at a homeless shelter, and then sit down and eat with people staying there.

“It’s probably the most profound thing that they do to understand that homelessness is closer to them than they thought,” Cook said.

The image of people wandering the streets because of drug addiction or being unwilling or unable to work may apply to some people who are homeless. Cook said although those issues are important, many homeless people who may be in dire financial straits, are not very different from most students and their families.