Fort Pitt Blockhouse
The Fort Pitt Block House is a historic building in Point State Park in the city of Pittsburgh. It was constructed in 1764 as a redoubt of Fort Pitt, making it the oldest extant structure in Western Pennsylvania, as well as the "oldest authenticated structure west of the Allegheny Mountains"; the Block House was constructed in 1764 as a defensive military redoubt. Henry Bouquet initiated the construction of a small number of redoubts around the outer walls of the fort as a way to reinforce its defense, of which only the Fort Pitt Block House survives; when Fort Pitt was demolished in 1792, the Block House was left untouched because it was in use as a residence. The structure had been converted into a private house in 1785 by Isaac Craig. In 1894, philanthropist Mary Schenley presented the deed to the Block House to the Daughters of the American Revolution, she did this so that the structure might be preserved for future generations:You are to preserve and keep this relic of a bygone past, to gather and preserve all obtainable history and tradition in regard to it, you are to beautify and adorn it and to make it the receptacle of relics bearing on the Colonial and Revolutionary periods of its existence.…I will therefore…leave the ladies of your Society, who have the history of western Pennsylvania at their finger ends, to tell the story of the chivalrous Frenchmen, crafty Indians, courageous British, intrepid Colonists.
It is fitting that this old landmark, rich in historic associations of more than a century ago, should fall into the hands of those who by birth and sentiment are fitted to receive and preserve it and perpetuate the memories of the days when it was occupied by the French and their Indian allies, afterwards by the British and Colonial troops. Industrialist Henry Clay Frick purchased all of the land surrounding the Block House in 1902, shortly before Schenley's death, he offered the DAR $25,000 to move the Block House to Schenley Park. Following lengthy litigation, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled in favor of the DAR and the Block House, enabling its continued preservation; the structure has never been torn down rebuilt, or moved during its centuries of existence. Much of its timbers and stone remain original to its 1764 construction. Although the Block House resides within the boundaries of Point State Park, it is owned and operated by the Fort Pitt Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
The DAR allows visitors to the park to tour the structure. The building is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as being the sole surviving historical building in the "Forks of the Ohio" historic place, it has a historical marker issued by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and is a Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation designated Historic Landmark. Pittsburgh Waste Book and Fort Pitt Trading Post Papers. ULS Archives Service Center University of Pittsburgh Library System. 360° panorama of the Block House exterior 360° panorama of the Block House interior
Allegheny River
The Allegheny River is a 325-mile long headwater stream of the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania and New York, United States. The Allegheny River runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border northwesterly into New York in a zigzag southwesterly across the border and through Western Pennsylvania to join the Monongahela River at the Forks of the Ohio on the "Point" of Point State Park in Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the Allegheny River is, by volume, the main headstream of both the Mississippi Rivers. The Allegheny was considered to be the upper Ohio River by both Native Americans and European settlers; the shallow river has been made navigable upstream from Pittsburgh to East Brady by a series of locks and dams constructed in the early 20th century. A 24-mile long portion of the upper river in Warren and McKean counties of Pennsylvania and Cattaraugus County in New York is the Allegheny Reservoir known as Lake Kinzua, created by the erection of the Kinzua Dam in 1965 for flood control.
The name of the river comes from one of a number of Delaware Indian phrases which are homophones of the English name, with varying translations. The name Allegheny comes from Lenape welhik hane or oolikhanna, which means'best flowing river of the hills' or'beautiful stream'. There is a Lenape legend of a tribe called "Allegewi"; the following account of the origin of the name Allegheny was given in 1780 by Moravian missionary David Zeisberger: "All this land and region, stretching as far as the creeks and waters that flow into the Alleghene the Delawares called Alligewinenk, which means'a land into which they came from distant parts'. The river itself, however, is called Alligewi Sipo; the whites have made Alleghene out of this, the Six Nations calling the river the Ohio."Indians, including the Lenni Lenape and Iroquois, considered the Allegheny and Ohio rivers as the same, as is suggested by a New York State road sign on Interstate 86 that refers to the Allegheny River as Ohiːyo'. The Geographic Names Information System lists O-hi-o as variant names.
The river is called Ohi:'i:o` in the Seneca language. In New York, areas around the river are named with the alternate spelling Allegany in reference to the river. Port Allegany, located along the river in Pennsylvania near the border with New York follows this pattern; the Allegheny River rises in north central Pennsylvania, on Cobb Hill in Alleghany Township in north central Potter County, 8 miles south of the New York border and a few miles northwest of the eastern triple divide. The stream flows south and passes under Pennsylvania Route 49 11 miles northeast of Coudersport where a historical marker that declares the start of the river is located. Cobb Hill is about a mile north; the stream flows southwest paralleling Route 49 to Coudersport. It continues west to Port Allegany turns north into western New York, looping westward across southern Cattaraugus County for 30 miles, past Portville, Olean and Salamanca and flowing through Seneca Indian Nation lands close to the northern boundary of Allegany State Park before re-entering northwestern Pennsylvania within the Allegheny Reservoir just east of the Warren-McKean county line, approx.
10 miles northeast of Warren. It flows in a broad zigzag course southwest across Western Pennsylvania. South of Franklin it turns southeast across Clarion County in a meandering course turns again southwest across Armstrong County, flowing past Kittanning, Ford City and Freeport; the river enters both Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, the Pittsburgh suburbs, the City of Pittsburgh from the northeast. It passes the North Side, downtown Pittsburgh, Point State Park; the Allegheny joins with the Monongahela River at the "Point" in downtown Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River. The river is 325 miles long, running through the U. S. states of New Pennsylvania. It drains a rural dissected plateau of 11,580 square miles in the northern Allegheny Plateau, providing the northeastern most drainage in the watershed of the Mississippi River, its tributaries reach to within 8 miles of Lake Erie in southwestern New York. Water from the Allegheny River flows into the Gulf of Mexico via the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
The Allegheny Valley has been one of the most productive areas of fossil fuel extraction in United States history, with its extensive deposits of coal and natural gas. In its upper reaches, the Allegheny River is joined from the south by Potato Creek 1.7 miles downstream of Coryville and from the north by Olean Creek at Olean, New York. Tunungwant "Tuna" Creek joins the river from the south in New York. After re-entering Pennsylvania, the river is joined from the east by Kinzua Creek 10 miles upstream of Warren.
Cumberland, Maryland
Cumberland is a city in and the county seat of Allegany County, United States. It is the primary city of MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the 2010 census, the city had a population of 20,859, the metropolitan area had a population of 103,299. Located on the Potomac River, Cumberland is a regional business and commercial center for Western Maryland and the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia. Cumberland was known as the "Queen City," as it was once the second largest in the state; because of its strategic location on what became known as the Cumberland Road through the Appalachians, after the American Revolution it served as a historical outfitting and staging point for westward emigrant trail migrations throughout the first half of the 1800s. In this role, it supported the settlement of the Ohio Country and the lands in that latitude of the Louisiana Purchase, it became an industrial center, served by major roads and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which connected Cumberland to Washington, D.
C. and is now a national park. Today, Interstate 68 bisects the town. Industry declined after World War II. Much of the urban and technological development in the state has been concentrated in eastern coastal cities. Today the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area is one of the poorest in the United States, ranking 305th out of 318 metropolitan areas in per capita income. Cumberland was named by English colonists after the son of King George II, Prince William, the Duke of Cumberland, it is built on the site of the mid-18th century Fort Cumberland, the starting point for British General Edward Braddock's ill-fated attack on the French stronghold of Fort Duquesne during the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years' War between the French and the British. This area had long been settled for thousands of years by indigenous peoples; the fort was developed along the Great Indian Warpath. Cumberland served as an outpost of Colonel George Washington during the French and Indian War, his first military headquarters was built here.
Washington returned as President of the United States in 1794 to Cumberland to review troops assembled to thwart the Whiskey Rebellion. During the 19th century, Cumberland was a key road and canal junction, it became the second-largest city in Maryland after the port city of Baltimore. It was nicknamed "The Queen City". Cumberland was the terminus, namesake, of the Cumberland Road that extended westward to the Ohio River at Wheeling, West Virginia; this was the first portion of what would be constructed as the National Road, which reached Ohio and Illinois. In the 1850s, many black fugitives reached their final stop on the underground railroad beneath the floor of the Emmanuel Episcopal Church. A maze of tunnels beneath and an abolitionist pastor above provided refuge before the final five mile trip to freedom in Pennsylvania; the surrounding hillsides were mined for coal and iron ore, harvested for timber that helped supply the Industrial Revolution. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal had its western terminus here.
Construction of railroads superseded use of the canal, as trains were faster and could carry more freight. The city developed as a major manufacturing center, with industries in glass, breweries and tinplate. With the restructuring of heavy industry in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states following World War II, the city lost many jobs; as a result, its population has declined by nearly half, from 39,483 in the 1940 census to fewer than 20,000 today. Cumberland is in the Ridge and Valley physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains at 39°38′52″N 78°45′46″W, at the junction of the North Branch of the Potomac River and Wills Creek; the majority of the land within the city lies in a valley created by the junction of these two streams. Interstate 68 runs through the city in an east/west direction, as does Alternate U. S. 40, the Old National Road. U. S. Highway 220 runs north/south. Parts of Wills Mountain, Haystack Mountain, Shriver Ridge are within the city limits; the abandoned Chesapeake and Ohio Canal is now part of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park.
The canal's towpath is maintained, allowing travel by foot, horse or bicycle between Cumberland and Washington, D. C. a distance of about 185 miles. In recent years a separate trail/path extension, called the Great Allegheny Passage, has been developed that leads to Pittsburgh as its western terminus. Cumberland is the only city of at least 20,000 residents, outside of the Pittsburgh and DC metro areas, that lies on this combined 300+ mile stretch. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.15 square miles, of which 10.08 square miles is land and 0.07 square miles is water. Cumberland is at the eastern entrance to the Cumberland Narrows, a water gap along Wills Creek that crosses the central ridge of the Wills Mountain Anticline at a low elevation between Wills Mountain to the north and Haystack Mountain to the south. Cliffs and talus of the two mountains' Tuscarora quartzite caprock are prominent within the Narrows; these geological features provide Cumberland a western backdrop of the two mountains and the narrow gap between them.
The Cumberland Narrows acts as a western gateway from Cumberland to the Appalachian Plateau and the Ohio River Valley beyond. The Old National Road, now Alternate U. S. 40, passes through the Narrows. The former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's main line b
Downtown Pittsburgh
Downtown Pittsburgh, colloquially referred to as the Golden Triangle, the Central Business District, is the urban downtown center of Pittsburgh. It is located at the confluence of the Allegheny River and the Monongahela River whose joining forms the Ohio River; the "triangle" is bounded by the two rivers. The area features offices for major corporations such as PNC Bank, U. S. Steel, PPG, Bank of New York Mellon, Federated Investors and Alcoa, it is where the fortunes of such industrial barons as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, Henry J. Heinz, Andrew Mellon and George Westinghouse were made, it contains the site where Fort Duquesne, once stood. In 2013, Pittsburgh had the second-lowest vacancy rate for Class A space among downtowns in the United States; the Central Business District is bounded by the Monongahela River to the south, the Allegheny River to the north, I-579 to the east. An expanded definition of Downtown may include the adjacent neighborhoods of Uptown/The Bluff, the Strip District, the North Shore, the South Shore.
Downtown is served by the Port Authority's light rail subway system, an extensive bus network, two inclines. The Downtown portion of the subway has the following stations: T Stations Station Square on the South Shore in the Station Square development First Avenue near First Avenue & Ross Street, Downtown Steel Plaza at Sixth Avenue & Grant Street, Downtown Penn Plaza near Liberty Avenue & Grant Street, Downtown Wood Street at the triangular intersection of Wood Street, Sixth Avenue, Liberty Avenue, Downtown Gateway Center at Liberty Avenue & Stanwix Street, Downtown North Side near General Robinson Street & Tony Dorsett Drive on the North Shore Allegheny near Allegheny Avenue & Reedsdale Street on the North Shore Downtown is home to the Pittsburgh Amtrak train station connecting Pittsburgh with New York City and Washington, D. C. to the east and Cleveland and Chicago to the west. Greyhound's Pittsburgh bus terminal is located across Liberty Avenue from the Amtrak Station, in the Grant Street Transportation Center building.
Major roadways serving Downtown from the suburbs include the "Parkway East" from Monroeville, the "Parkway West" from the airport area, the "Parkway North" from the North Hills, in Downtown Pittsburgh. Other important roadways are Pennsylvania Route 28, Pennsylvania Route 51, Pennsylvania Route 65, U. S. Route 19. Three major entrances to the city are via tunnels: the Fort Pitt Tunnel and Squirrel Hill Tunnel on I-376 and the Liberty Tunnels; the New York Times once called Pittsburgh "the only city with an entrance," referring to the view of Downtown that explodes upon drivers upon exiting the Fort Pitt Tunnel. Traveling I-279 south and I-376, the city "explodes into view" when coming around a turn in the highway. Downtown surface streets are based on two distinct grid systems that parallel the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers; these two grids intersect along Liberty Avenue. Furthermore, the Allegheny grid contains numbered streets, while the Monongahela grid contains numbered avenues. And, in fact, there are cases where these numbered creating some confusion.
This unusual grid pattern leads to Pittsburghers giving directions in the terms of landmarks, rather than turn-by-turn directions. Pittsburgh is nicknamed "The City of Bridges". In Downtown, there are 10 bridges connecting to points south; the expanded definition of Downtown includes 18 bridges. Citywide there are 446 bridges. In Allegheny County the number exceeds 2,200. Downtown Bridges Fort Pitt Bridge carries I-376 between Downtown and the Fort Pitt Tunnel Fort Duquesne Bridge carries I-279 between Downtown and the North Shore Smithfield Street Bridge carries Smithfield Street between Downtown and the South Shore Panhandle Bridge carries the city's light rail transit system between Downtown and the South Shore Liberty Bridge connects the Liberty Tunnel to I-579 Downtown Roberto Clemente Bridge connects 6th Street Downtown to Federal Street on the North Shore at PNC Park Andy Warhol Bridge connects 7th Street Downtown to Sandusky Street on the North Shore at the Andy Warhol Museum Rachel Carson Bridge connects 9th Street Downtown to Anderson Street on the North Shore Fort Wayne Railroad Bridge carries freight and Amtrak trains from Downtown to the North Shore Veterans Bridge carries I-579 from Downtown to the North Side Bridges of Expanded Downtown West End Bridge carries US Route 19 from the West End/South Shore to the North Shore/North Side just west of Downtown 16th Street Bridge carries 16th Street from the Strip District to Chestnut Street on the North Side West Penn Bridge is part of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail connecting the North Side to Washington's Landing on Herr's Island 30th Street Bridge connects River Avenue on the North Side with Waterfront Drive on Washington's Landing at Herr's Island 31st Street Bridge connects PA Route 28 on the North Side with 31st Street in the Strip District 33rd Street Railroad Bridge connects the North Side to the Strip District and crosses Herr's Island South 10th Street Bridge connects the Armstrong Tunnel at Second Avenue just east of Downtown with the South Side at South 10th Street Birmingham Br
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies known as the Thirteen British Colonies or the Thirteen American Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America founded in the 17th and 18th centuries. They formed the United States of America; the Thirteen Colonies had similar political and legal systems and were dominated by Protestant English-speakers. They were part of Britain's possessions in the New World, which included colonies in Canada, the Caribbean, the Floridas. Between 1625 and 1775, the colonial population grew from 2,000 to over 2.5 million, displacing American Indians. This population included people subject to a system of slavery, legal in all of the colonies prior to the American Revolutionary War. In the 18th century, the British government operated its colonies under a policy of mercantilism, in which the central government administered its possessions for the economic benefit of the mother country; the Thirteen Colonies had a high degree of self-governance and active local elections, they resisted London's demands for more control.
The French and Indian War against France and its Indian allies led to growing tensions between Britain and the Thirteen Colonies. In the 1750s, the colonies began collaborating with one another instead of dealing directly with Britain; these inter-colonial activities cultivated a sense of shared American identity and led to calls for protection of the colonists' "Rights as Englishmen" the principle of "no taxation without representation". Grievances with the British government led to the American Revolution, in which the colonies collaborated in forming the Continental Congress; the colonists fought the American Revolutionary War with the aid of France and, to a smaller degree, the Dutch Republic and Spain. In 1606, King James I of England granted charters to both the Plymouth Company and the London Company for the purpose of establishing permanent settlements in America; the London Company established the Colony and Dominion of Virginia in 1607, the first permanently settled English colony on the continent.
The Plymouth Company founded the Popham Colony on the Kennebec River. The Plymouth Council for New England sponsored several colonization projects, culminating with Plymouth Colony in 1620, settled by English Puritan separatists, known today as the Pilgrims; the Dutch and French established successful American colonies at the same time as the English, but they came under the English crown. The Thirteen Colonies were complete with the establishment of the Province of Georgia in 1732, although the term "Thirteen Colonies" became current only in the context of the American Revolution. In London beginning in 1660, all colonies were governed through a state department known as the Southern Department, a committee of the Privy Council called the Board of Trade and Plantations. In 1768, a specific state department was created for America, but it was disbanded in 1782 when the Home Office took responsibility. Province of New Hampshire, established in the 1620s, chartered as crown colony in 1679 Province of Massachusetts Bay, established in the 1620s, a crown colony 1692 Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, established 1636, chartered as crown colony in 1663 Connecticut Colony, established 1636, chartered as crown colony in 1662 Province of New York, proprietary colony 1664–1685, crown colony from 1686 Province of New Jersey, proprietary colony from 1664, crown colony from 1702 Province of Pennsylvania, a proprietary colony established 1681 Delaware Colony, a proprietary colony established 1664 Province of Maryland, a proprietary colony established 1632 Colony and Dominion of Virginia, proprietary colony established 1607, a crown colony from 1624 Province of Carolina, a proprietary colony established 1663 Divided into the Province of North-Carolina and Province of South Carolina in 1712, each became a crown colony in 1729 Province of Georgia, proprietary colony established 1732, crown colony from 1752.
The first successful English colony was Jamestown, established May 1607 near Chesapeake Bay. The business venture was financed and coordinated by the London Virginia Company, a joint stock company looking for gold, its first years were difficult, with high death rates from disease and starvation, wars with local Indians, little gold. The colony flourished by turning to tobacco as a cash crop. In 1632, King Charles I granted the charter for Province of Maryland to Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore. Calvert's father had been a prominent Catholic official who encouraged Catholic immigration to the English colonies; the charter offered no guidelines on religion. The Province of Carolina was the second attempted English settlement south of Virginia, the first being the failed attempt at Roanoke, it was a private venture, financed by a group of English Lords Proprietors who obtained a Royal Charter to the Carolinas in 1663, hoping that a new colony in the south would become profitable like Jamestown.
Carolina was not settled until 1670, then the first attempt failed because there was no incentive for emigration to that area. However, the Lords combined their remaining capital and financed a settlement mission to the area led by Sir John Colleton; the expedition located fertile and defensible ground at what became Charleston Charles Town for Charles II of England. The Pilgrims were a small group of Puritan separatists who felt that they needed to physically distance themselves from the corrupt Church of England. After moving to the Netherlands, they decided to re-establish themselves in America; the initi
Internet
The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of private, academic and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic and optical networking technologies; the Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web, electronic mail and file sharing. Some publications no longer capitalize "internet"; the origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the federal government of the United States in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication with computer networks. The primary precursor network, the ARPANET served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s; the funding of the National Science Foundation Network as a new backbone in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial extensions, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, the merger of many networks.
The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s marked the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet, generated a sustained exponential growth as generations of institutional and mobile computers were connected to the network. Although the Internet was used by academia since the 1980s, commercialization incorporated its services and technologies into every aspect of modern life. Most traditional communication media, including telephony, television, paper mail and newspapers are reshaped, redefined, or bypassed by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as email, Internet telephony, Internet television, online music, digital newspapers, video streaming websites. Newspaper and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators; the Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, social networking. Online shopping has grown exponentially both for major retailers and small businesses and entrepreneurs, as it enables firms to extend their "brick and mortar" presence to serve a larger market or sell goods and services online.
Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries. The Internet has no single centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; the overreaching definitions of the two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address space and the Domain Name System, are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force, a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise. In November 2006, the Internet was included on USA Today's list of New Seven Wonders; when the term Internet is used to refer to the specific global system of interconnected Internet Protocol networks, the word is a proper noun that should be written with an initial capital letter.
In common use and the media, it is erroneously not capitalized, viz. the internet. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, but not capitalized when used as an adjective; the Internet is often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. As early as 1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective, meaning interconnected or interwoven; the designers of early computer networks used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are used interchangeably in everyday speech. However, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services; the Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs. As another point of comparison, Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, is the language used on the Web for information transfer, yet it is just one of many languages or protocols that can be used for communication on the Internet.
The term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user. Research into packet switching, one of the fundamental Internet technologies, started in the early 1960s in the work of Paul Baran and Donald Davies. Packet-switched networks such as the NPL network, ARPANET, the Merit Network, CYCLADES, Telenet were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s; the ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, by which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks. ARPANET development began with two network nodes which were interconnected between the Network Measurement Center at the University of California, Los Angeles Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science directed by Leonard Kleinrock, the NLS system at SRI International by Douglas Engelbart in Menlo Park, California, on 29 October 1969; the third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of
Homelessness
Homelessness is defined as living in housing, below the minimum standard or lacks secure tenure. People can be categorized as homeless; the legal definition of homeless varies from country to country, or among different jurisdictions in the same country or region. According to the UK homelessness charity Crisis, a home is not just a physical space: it provides roots, security, a sense of belonging and a place of emotional wellbeing. United States government homeless enumeration studies include people who sleep in a public or private place not designed for use as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. People who are homeless are most unable to acquire and maintain regular, safe and adequate housing due to a lack of, or an unsteady income. Homelessness and poverty are interrelated. In 2005, an estimated 100 million people worldwide were homeless and as many as 1 billion people live as squatters, refugees or in temporary shelter, all lacking adequate housing. In Western countries, the majority of homeless are men, with single males overrepresented.
However, current data suggests similar rates of homeless females. In 2015, the United States reported that there were 564,708 homeless people within its borders, one of the higher reported figures worldwide; these figures are underestimates as surveillance for the homeless population is challenging. When compared to the general population, people who are homeless experience higher rates of adverse physical and mental health outcomes, which renders them vulnerable to health conditions associated with climate change. Chronic disease severity, respiratory conditions, rates of mental health illnesses and substance use are all greater in homeless populations than the general population. Homelessness is associated with a high risk of suicide attempts. People experiencing homelessness have limited access to resources and are disengaged from health services, making them that much more susceptible to extreme weather events and ozone levels; these disparities result in increased morbidity and mortality in the homeless population.
There are a number of organizations. Most countries provide a variety of services to assist homeless people; these services provide food and clothing and may be organized and run by community organizations or by government departments or agencies. These programs may be supported by the government, charities and individual donors. Many cities have street newspapers, which are publications designed to provide employment opportunity to homeless people. While some homeless have jobs, some must seek other methods to make a living. Begging or panhandling is one option, but is becoming illegal in many cities. People who are homeless may have additional conditions, such as physical or mental health issues or substance addiction. Homeless people, homeless organizations, are sometimes accused or convicted of fraudulent behaviour. Criminals are known to exploit homeless people, ranging from identity theft to tax and welfare scams; these incidents lead to negative connotations on the homeless as a group. In 2004, the United Nations sector of Economic and Social Affairs defined a homeless household as those households without a shelter that would fall within the scope of living quarters due to a lack of or a steady income.
They carry their few possessions with them, sleeping in the streets, in doorways or on piers, or in another space, on a more or less random basis. In 2009, at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Conference of European Statisticians, held in Geneva, the Group of Experts on Population and Housing Censuses defined homelessness as: In its Recommendations for the Censuses of Population and Housing, the CES identifies homeless people under two broad groups: Primary homelessness; this category includes persons living in the streets without a shelter that would fall within the scope of living quarters. This category may include persons with no place of usual residence who move between various types of accommodations; this category includes persons living in private dwellings but reporting'no usual address' on their census form. The CES acknowledges that the above approach does not provide a full definition of the'homeless'. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted 10 December 1948 by the UN General Assembly, contains this text regarding housing and quality of living: Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing and medical care and necessary social services, the right to security in the event of unemployment, disability, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Homelessness is addressed differently according to country. The European Typology of Homelessness and Housing Exclusion was developed as a means of improving understanding and measurement of homelessness in Europe, to provide a common "language" for transnational exchanges on homelessness; the ETHOS approach confirms that homelessne
