MARQUETTE -- On any given night in the United States, more than one million people go to sleep without a home to call their own, and the Upper Peninsula is no exception to that statistic, even when the weather gets cold.
They're hidden in plain sight. Living in tents and lean-tos in the woods just outside the city of Marquette, you can sometimes find the U.P.'s homeless.
And that's exactly where N.M.U. Social Work professors, Tim Hilton and Cornell DeJong, found the man who helped inspire their study on the rural homeless.
"The homeless in an area like the U.P. have connections to the area; they have family and they have friends and they maintain contact with the family and friends, which is not what many people saw in urban areas," explains Hilton.
But those family and friends aren't always able to supply the resources needed.
"Did you ever think that you would be homeless?" we asked a Marquette woman, who recently found herself without a home.
She told me: "No, never in a million years."
Danelle was homeless just last month.
"...And was no longer able to afford my current bills, which led me to be homeless, and went to the Harbor House where I was homeless for three months with my child, who is eight," says Danelle.
And she isn't alone. According to data compiled earlier this year, the leading cause of homelessness in Marquette and Alger counties was the inability to pay rent or mortgage.
Other causes documented? Alcohol or drug use, mental illness, loss of job or lack of job skills, and medical problems. Further down the list: domestic violence, eviction, and patients discharged from institutions.
The average age of those surveyed was 34 years old.
Danelle, who is 31, is now enrolled in a six-year-program at Northern where she hopes to pursue a degree in child development.
"And to be able to find the resources to be able to go back to college, to be educated so that I can financially support myself somewhere down the line and take care of my family on my own," Danelle says.
So where are these homeless people?
Surprisingly, not all in shelters, in fact many of them choose to 'rough it' outdoors or in abandoned buildings where there are no set rules.
"It's not unusual that you wouldn't see them because they don't want to be seen, but they want to be close enough so that they can access resources," Hilton adds. "In large part, they don't want to be known as homeless."
It's a problem that is just as notable here as it is in any other part of the country.
In part two, we'll look at the different agencies and services available to the homeless. We'll also tell you what the community can do to help.
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