We asked 12 homeless people what happened. Their answers show how close we all are to the streets.

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5. Being homeless means there is nobody left for you to stay with.

There's nobody left in your family or friends who have a place for you any longer.
I worked at a Salvation Army homeless shelter for the last years of my working career and I saw a lot of different kind of homeless. The woman, mother who has escaped an abusive partner and has little or no money or skills. The guy who spent even a year or two in prison as a young man and now well into his 30s he is still repaying his debt to society as his prison time still haunts him in finding a job or a place to live even though he has been on the straight and narrow for years. And lots of kids. People in my small city would be surprised at how many homeless children are in the schools here.
But there are lots of reasons and ways to become homeless--people who so desperately want that number on the street, that address all their own that makes them an actual person in the eyes of our society.