Number of Israeli homeless grew 27 percent last year

This is because their main problem is not a lack of housing. But experts say the number of homeless known to the authorities, estimated to number 3,471 people at the end of last year, is much lower than the real number because thousands do not conform to the official definition.

A breakdown of the numbers show that of the 450 people who were recognized as homeless for the first time last year, 60 percent had been living on the street for a long time but only turned for help when their financial situation deteriorated sharply. Nearly a third were people who had previously found housing, only to be driven back to the streets by the economic fallout of the pandemic. Ten percent of the new cases were people who had been made homelessness for the first time by the epidemic.
 

Officials said that many long-term homeless people only turned to social workers after their income, which could include panhandling and collecting bottles for deposit money, dried up amid COVID-related closures and restrictions. They also found it harder to feed themselves, since the restaurants and soup kitchens they patronized were shuttered.
 

“These are people who suddenly lost the ability to survive on their own in the streets. Some of them didn’t seek treatment and didn’t want the benefits they were entitled to. All they wanted was food,” a source at the Social Services Ministry told Haaretz.