What's the number one cause of homelessness?

Let's get the familiar and obvious answers out of the way:

1. Alcoholism?
2. Illegal or prescription drug use?
3. Incarceration?
4. Pornography?
5. Gambling?
6. Economics?
7. Lack of affordable housing?
8. Illiteracy?

If you said yes to any of the above, you've certainly identified a number of contributors to homelessness. In fact the number one contributor of homelessness among men in the United States is alcoholism and the number one contributor of homelessness among women in the U.S. is crack cocain. Incarceration - huge! We have more than 8,000 men and women coming into Lucas County every year from our corrections centers. Gambling? No one wants to talk much about the down sides of something so fun and"innocent" as gambling. Economics? Ohio still hasn't seen the economic recovery of most states, so our state and region wide economic woes definetly contribute to homelessness. What about pornography? This is the number one contributor to sex crimes and the making of sexual predators - I know, shocking isn't it?

But what about the number one cause of homelessness? Ready? It's the lack of knowledge!! That's right, the Bible says people perish because of it. The reason why the ministries of Cherry Street have been widely successful is because we know that the obvious (the list above) is simply the product of something else.

You can prove this by thinking about all the times you've failed, or made a bad choice or decision. You can track the wrong done to the lack of knowledge; either you didn't know, or you did know and chose to ignore it anyway. Either way, it was the lack of knowledge applied that brought about the negative outcome. How have you corrected these bad decisions moving forward? You've made sure you've got knowledge working for you.

When we introduce knowledge into the lives of the men and women we serve, their lives begin to change - from the inside out. Of course, the knowledge that we unashamedly apply is that of God through Christ Jesus.

Dan Rogers